BY  PERMISSION,  FROM  PORTRAIT  PAINTED  FOR  THE  LATE  JOHN  C.  PHILLIPS,   ESQ. 
BY  FREDERIC  P.  VINTON. 


SPEECHES 


LECTURES,  AND    LETTERS 


BY 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS 


SECOND  SERIES 


BOSTON    1891 
LEE    AND    SHEPARD    PUBLISHERS 

10  MILK  STREET  NEXT  li  THE  OLD  SOUTH  MEETING  HOUSE" 

YORK  CHARLES  T.  DILLINGHAM 

718  AXD  720  BROADWAY 


Copyright,  1891, 
BY  LEE  AND  SHEPARD. 


All  rights  reserved. 

SPEECHES  AND  LECTURES  OF  WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 
SECOND  SERIES. 


SJttttoctsttg 

JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


PREFATOKY  NOTE. 


rpWENTY-EIGHT  yews  ago,  in  1863,  WENDELL 
PHILLIPS  yielded  to  the  solicitations  of  his 
friends,  and  revised  for  publication  a  selection  of 
his  Speeches,  Lectures,  and  Letters. 

The  moment  was  well  chosen.  On  the  one  hand 
public  interest  in  the  Antislavery  question,  the  constant 
burden  of  the  orator's  utterance,  had  widened  and  deep- 
ened with  the  progress  of  the  war,  and  had  reached  its 
height  when  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  appeared ; 
and  on  the  other  hand,  the  personal  popularity  of  Mr. 
PHILLIPS  was  steadily  rising  throughout  the  North  and 
the  West. 

Both  these  changes  account  in  part  for  the  welcome 
the  volume  at  once  received.  But  its  permanent  place 
among  the  records  of  American  eloquence  is  due  to 
deeper  and  intrinsic  reasons.  The  classic  is  always 
contemporary.  If  the  immediate  occasion  and  subject 
of  the  speaker  pass,  the  truth  and  conviction  which 
inspire  his  appeal  are  not  lost ;  and  while  the  charm  of 
voice  and  action  may  die  with  the  moment,  or  survive 
only  as  a  tradition,  there  is  a  deeper  grace  of  form 
which  makes  the  speech,  as  well  as  the  poem,  an  eternal 

929817 


IV  PREFATORY   NOTE. 

possession.  And  the  student  of  oratory  will  find  no 
better  or  safer  model  than  Mr.  PHILLIPS,  if  he  would  seek 
direct,  incisive  speech,  abundance  and  felicity  of  illustra- 
tion, skill  in  applying  truth  to  present  needs,  and,  above 
all,  the  union  of  the  highest  gifts  of  eloquence  with 
lightness  of  touch,  a  conversational  reality  of  tone,  and 
language  level  to  the  understanding  of  every  hearer. 
Such  mastery  of  invective  also,  keen  and  graceful  as  a 
Damascus  blade,  it  has  well  been  said,  lends  new  mean- 
ing to  the  term  "philippic." 

Repeated  calls  have  been  made  for  other  speeches  of 
Mr.  PHILLIPS.  At  the  time  of  his  death  he  not  only  had 
a  further  selection  in  mind,  but  had  revised  certain 
lectures,  and  had  promised  a  second  volume  to  the 
present  publishers.  This  collection,  therefore,  is  in- 
tended as  a  partial  fulfilment  of  his  own  purpose,  no 
less  than  as  an  answer  to  the  popular  demand.  It  illus- 
trates the  wide  range  of  time  and  topic  covered  by  his 
interest  and  his  eloquence.  It  begins  with  the  earliest 
of  his  speeches,  delivered  nine  months  before  the  famous 
Lovejoy  address  which  stands  first  in  the  other  volume, 
and  closes  with  his  last  public  utterance,  his  tribute  to 
the  memory  of  Harriet  Martinean.  An  interval  of  over 
forty-six  years  separates  the  two  addresses. 

A  glance  at  the  table  of  contents  shows  how  wide  a 
variety  of  subjects  has  been  treated.  Beside  his  recog- 
nized leadership  in  the  Antislavery  movement,  he  stands 
forth  as  an  early  champion  of  other  reforms, — Woman's 
Suffrage,  the  Labor  Agitation,  Temperance,  and  Penal 
Legislation.  The  lighter  play  of  his  genius  is  seen  in 
his  "  Letter  from  Naples "  and  his  "  Address  to  the 
Boston  School  Children."  His  literary  lectures  are 


PREFATORY    NOTE.  V 

given  large  prominence,  and  the  book  closes  with  six 
personal  tributes  from  his  lips. 

The  present  volume  forms  part  of  a  larger  plan.  The 
history  of  Mr.  PHILLIPS'S  relation  to  the  Antislavery 
movement,  the  growth  of  his  views  and  sentiments,  and 
the  development  of  his  power  and  fame  as  an  orator  are 
reserved  for  another  work.  It  will  be  illustrated  by  a 
series  of  speeches  and  selections  not  included  in  either 
of  the  volumes  already  published.  It  will  follow  his 
steps  through  contumely  and  hatred  to  honor  and  tri- 
umph such  as  few  orators  have  known.  It  will  set  in 
strong  relief  the  pure  and  lofty  ideal  of  conscience  and 
citizenship  which  he  maintained  to  the  end,  untouched 
by  flattery  and  undaunted  by  threats.  In  connection 
with  these  earlier  volumes,  it  will  prove,  it  is  hoped,  a 
full  and  trustworthy  record  of  the  orator  and  agitator, 
and  an  enduring  monument  to  his  work  and  fame. 

The  editor  and  publishers  return  their  grateful  ac- 
knowledgments to  Mr.  J.  M.  W.  Yerrinton,  the  lifelong 
friend  of  Mr.  PHILLIPS,  to  whose  skilful  pencil  the  abid- 
ing memory  of  his  eloquence  is  so  largely  due. 

The  likeness  of  Mr.  PHILLIPS  in  this  volume  is  taken 
from  the  portrait  painted  for  the  late  John  C.  Phillips, 
Esq.,  by  Mr.  Frederic  P.  Vinton,  whose  kindness  and 
courtesy  in  allowing  its  use  will  be^  appreciated  by  the 
readers  as  well  as  by  the  publishers. 

THEODORE   C.   PEASE. 
BOSTON,  April,  1891. 


CONTENTS. 


/  PAGE 

THE  RIGHT  OF  PETITION  (1837)  Y. 1 

LETTER  TO  GEORGE  THOMPSON  (1839) 7 

COTTON,  THE  CORNERSTONE  OF  SLAVERY  (1840) 13 

IRISH  SYMPATHY  WITH  THE  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT  (1842)  .    .  19 

WELCOME  TO  GEORGE  THOMPSON  (1850) 24 

KOSSUTH  (1851)    . 40 

CRISPUS  ATTUCKS  (1858) 69 

CAPITAL  PUNISHMENT  (1855) 77 

SUFFRAGE  FOR  WOMAN  (1861)  <v. 110 

WOMAN'S  EIGHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES  (1866>/.     ....  128  C- 

THE  EIGHT-HOUR.  MOVEMENT  (1865)   . 139  < 

THE  CHINESE  (1870) 145 

THE  FOUNDATION  OF  THE  LABOR  MOVEMENT  (1871^>.     .     .  152 

THE  LABOR  QUESTION  (1872)  ^£ 168 

THE  MAINE  LIQUOR  LAW  (1865) 178 

DR.  CROSBY'S   "CALM   VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE"  (1881)   .     .  195 

LETTER  FROM  NAPLES  (1841) 219 

ADDRESS  TO  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOL  CHILDREN  (1865)  ....  225 

THE  OLD  SOUTH  MEETING-HOUSE  (1876) 231 


V111  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  CHURCH  (1850) 244 

THE  PULPIT  (1860) 252 

CHRISTIANITY  A  BATTLE,  NOT  A  DREAM  (1869) 276 

THE  PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  JOHN  BROWN  (1859)  ....  294 

THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE  (1859VT 309 

SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  (1881) 330 

THE  LOST  ARTS  (1838) 365 

DANIEL  O'CoNNELL  (1875)       .   './'.' 384 

TRIBUTES  :  — 

THEODORE  PARKER  (1860) 421 

FRANCIS  JACKSON  (1861) 440 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  (1865) 446 

HELEN  ELIZA  GARRISON  (1876) 454 

WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON  (1879)     ....  459 

HARRIET  MARTINEAU  (1883)     .     .  , 473 


Knight-errant  of  unfriended  Truth,  he  blew 
His  magic  note  that  charmed  the  air  to  song 
Before  grim  castles,  and  to  frowning  Wrong 
Flung  down  his  gauntlet.      Giant  Error  flew. 
Full-armed,  to  crush  him  ;   but  his  falchion  true 
Smote  the  foul  monster  prone  the  earth  along. 
Meat  from  the  eater,  honey  from  the  strong, 
Not  he,  but  others,  through  his  conflict  drew. 

Alert,  unwearied,  with  his  lance  at  rest,  — 
What  wonder  he  should  win  where  others  fail '? 
Each  high  emprise  led  up  to  farther  quest ; 
No  selfish  rust  bedimmed  his  shining  mail: 
Of  all  our  Table  Round  the  purest,  best,  — 
Our  Galahad  beheld  the  Holy  Grail! 

T.  C.  P. 

BOSTON,  April,  1891. 


SPEECHES,  LECTURES,  AND   LETTERS. 


SPEECHES,  LECTURES,  AND  LEITO3. 


THE  EIGHT  OF  PETITION. 


At  the  Quarterly  Meeting  of  the  Massachusetts  Antislavery  So- 
ciety, held  in  Lynn,  March  28,  1837,  the  following  resolution  was 
offered  by  Wendell  Phillips,  Esq.,  of  Boston  :  - 

Resolved,  That  the  exertions  of  the  Hon.  John  Quincy  Adams, 
and  the  rest  of  the  Massachusetts  Delegation  who  sustained  him,  in 
his  defence  of  the  right  of  petition,  deserve  the  cordial  approbation 
and  the  gratitude  of  every  American  citizen. 

This  was  the  first  speech  of  Mr.  Phillips,  and  marked  his  entrance 
upon  the  Antislavery  movement.  Another  speech  delivered  by  him 
oil  the  same  day  and  occasion  will  be  found  in  a  later  volume. 

MR.  PRESIDENT  :  One  of  the  previous  resolutions  of 
this  meeting  refers  to  the  success  of  the  cause  of 
abolition  within  the  last  few  months,  and  the  bright 
hopes  with  which  we  may  enter  on  another  year  of  la- 
bor. The  petitions  which  have 'loaded  the  tables  of  our 
State  and  National  Legislatures  may  certainly  be  con- 
sidered as  one  great  cause  of  that  success,  and  the  pur- 
suing of  the  same  course,  the  best  ground  of  hope  for 
the  future.  Such  circumstances  naturally  fix  every  eye 
on  that  distinguished  citizen  to  whom  the  resolution 
refers.  His  course  during  the  last  session  deserves  the 
gratitude  of  every  American  ;  for  in  that  contest,  he 
was  not  the  representative  of  any  State  or  any  party, 


Z  THE    RIGHT    OF    PETITION. 

but  the  champion  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
Constitution.  The  right  of  petition  we  had  thought  as 
firmly  fixfed  -m  -tSe/soil  of  America  as  the  Saxon  race 
vhjch;  brought  it  here.  It  was  the  breath  of  life  during 
our  colonial;  Jiistftry,  ?md  is  recognized  on  every  page  of 
our  history  since  as  the  bulwark  of  civil  liberty.  An- 
tiquity and  the  historical  associations  of  our  mother 
country  had  rendered  it  so  sacred  that  we  looked  con- 
fidently to  that  for  protection  and  redress,  when  all  other 
means  should  fail. 

Upon  the  friends  of  abolition,  of  free  discussion,  of 
equal  rights,  throughout  the  land,  insult  had  been 
heaped  on  insult,  and  outrage  added  to  outrage,  till  we 
thought  that  malice  had  done  its  worst.  All  the  out- 
works that  guard  the  citadel  of  liberty  had  been  in  turn 
overthrown.  The  dearest  rights  of  freemen  had  been, 
one  by  one,  torn  from  us.  We  had  heard,  at  a  time  of 
profound  peace,  in  the  midst  of  our  most  crowded  cities, 
the  voice  of  the  multitude  once  and  again  overwhelm 
the  voice  of  the  laws,  almost  without  the  shadow  of  an 
attempt  at  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  civil  magistrate. 
We  had  seen  a  price  set  by  a  Southern  legislature  on  the 
head  of  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts,  for  presuming  to 
think  as  he  pleased,  and  to  speak  what  he  thought, 
within  the  borders  of  the  old  Commonwealth ;  and 
this  insult  had  been  answered  only  by  a  recommen- 
dation on  the  part  of  our  own  Executive  that  whoever 
dared  to  move  the  question  of  slavery  should  be  pro- 
ceeded against  at  common  law.  We  had  long  known 
that  we  held  our  lives  and  property  at  the  will  of  the 
mob ;  but  now,  as  if  by  common  consent,  the  North 
seems  ready  to  yield  to  Southern  threats  the  right 
to  speak  and  to  think.  "  The  time  had  come  when 
eloquence  was  to  be  gagged,  and  reason  to  be  hood- 
winked." We  had  heard  in  old  Faneuil,  and  from  the 


THE    RIGHT    OF   PETITION.  3 

lips  of  those  whose  very  names  should  have  been  a 
guaranty  of  their  attachment  to  freedom,  principles 
which  would  have  blotted  out  every  page  of  our  past 
history. 

Borne  down,  but  not  dismayed, —  confident  that  the 
hearts  of  the  people,  could  the  truth  but  reach  them,  were 
sound  at  the  core,  —  we  sought  out  the  weapon  which 
our  fathers  wielded ;  we  besieged  the  doors  of  our  State 
legislatures  with  petitions  and  remonstrances.  I  need 
not  tell  the  county  of  Essex  how  that  appeal  was  an- 
swered. Of  that  answer  they  have  already  taken  note. 
There  was  one  refuge  left,  —  the  government  which  our 
fathers  established,  "  to  promote  justice,  and  secure  the 
blessings  of  liberty  to  themselves  and  their  posterity." 
There,  at  least,  we  might  hope  to  find  men  able  to  look 
behind  circumstances  to  principles. 

Who  does  not  recollect  the  astonishment  —  for  the 
first  feeling  was  rather  astonishment  than  indignation 
—  with  which  we  heard  that  the  door  of  the  capitol  was 
closed  to  the  voice  of  the  people  ?  It  seemed  as  if  the 
nation  had  been  pressing  on  blindfold,  and  we  opened 
our  eyes  only  to  behold  the  precipice  over  which  we 
were  rushing ;  as  if  the  time-honored  rights  which  had 
been  fought  for  on  British  ground,  and  which  our  fathers 
had  inherited,  not  won,  were  again  to  be  struggled  for. 
The  car  of  Liberty  had  rolled  back  four  centuries,  and 
the  contest  whose  history  is  written  on  the  battlefields 
and  scaffolds  of  England  had  been  all  in  vain.  Well 
might  hope  sicken,  and  the  bravest  despair. 

And  who  does  not  recollect  the  thrill  of  enthusiastic 
feeling  with  which  we  heard  that  Adams  had  thrown 
himself  into  the  gap,  and  was  contending,  at  first  single- 
handed,  for  the  right  of  the  citizen  to  petition,  no  matter 
what  his  creed,  his  color,  or  his  party  ?  The  effort  was 
the  nobler  in  that  he  was  not  a  member  of  the  body  of 


4  THE   RIGHT    OF   PETITION. 

men  in  whose  persons  this  right  had  been  invaded.  No 
interest  of  his  or  of  his  friends  had  been  touched. 
Against  our  efforts  he  had  all  along  protested ;  but, 
statesman-like,  he  saw  the  end  from  the  beginning. 
When  rights  were  invaded,  he  was  willing  to  side  with 
any  who  rallied  to  protect  them.  How  much  truer  to 
the  name  he  bore  than  many  others  who  stood  higher 
in  our  esteem,  and  were  dearer  to  us,  than  himself ! 
We  hail  him  as  the  champion  of  free  principles.  We 
accord  to  him  the  high  merit  of  a  pure  attachment  to 
civil  liberty  which  would  not  permit  her  to  be  attacked, 
even  when  she  appeared  in  the  garb  of  a  party  which 
it  was  his  interest,  and  he  felt  it  to  be  his  duty,  to  op- 
pose ;  of  a  clear-sighted,  far-reaching  wisdom,  which 
discovered  the  first  approach  of  corruption  and  snuffed 
oppression  in  the  tainted  breeze ;  of  a  noble  disregard 
to  party  lines,  when  to  have  adhered  to  them  would 
have  compromised  the  fundamental  principles  of  our 
government. 

The  supineness  of  the  North  under  the  act  of  Southern 
aggression,  and  still  more,  the  indifference  with  which 
Calhoun's  bill  was  generally  received,  are  the  strongest 
arguments  we  can  offer  to  our  fellow-citizens  to  induce 
them  to  look  at  this  subject.  Why,  such  a  proposition 
on  any  other  occasion  would  have  set  the  whole  country 
in  a  blaze !  It  would  have  sent  an  electric  shock  through 
the  land,  and  called  forth  from  its  slumbering  retreats 
all  the  spirit  of  olden  time.  What  is  it  that  thus  pal- 
sies our  strength  and  blinds  our  foresight?-  We  have 
become  so  familiar  with  slavery  that  we  are  no  longer 
aware  of  its  deadening  influence  on  the  body  politic. 
Pinkney's  words  have  become  true  :  "  The  stream  of 
general  liberty  cannot  flow  on  unpolluted  through  the 
mire  of  partial  bondage."  And  this  is  the  reason  we 
render  to  those  who  ask  us  why  we  are  contending 


THE   RIGHT   OF   PETITION.  5 

against  Southern  slavery,  —  that  it  may  not  result  in 
Northern  slavery  ;  because  time  has  shown  that  it  sends 
out  its  poisonous  brandies  over  all  our  fair  land,  and 
corrupts  the  very  air  we  breathe.     Our  fate  is  bound  up 
with  that  of  the  South,  so  that  they  cannot  be  corrupt 
and  we  sound  ;  they  cannot  fall,  and  we  stand.    Disunion 
is  coming,  unless  we  discuss  this  subject ;  for  the  spirit 
of  freedom  and  the  spirit  of  slavery  are  contending  hera 
for  the  mastery.     They  cannot  live  together :    as  well,v 
like  the  robber  of  classic  fable,  chain  the  living  and  the/ 
dead  together,  as  bind  up  such  discordant  materials,  and 
think  it  will  last.     We  must  prosper,  and  a  sound  publi^  t       „ ' 
opinion  root  out  slavery  from  the  land,  or  there  musi* 
grow  up  a  mighty  slaveholding  State  to  overshadow  and) 
mildew  our  free  institutions. 

I  have  said,  Mr.  President,  that  we  owe  gratitude  to 
Mr.  Adams  for  his  defence  of  the  right  of  petition.  A 
little  while  ago  it  would  have  been  absurd  to  talk  of 
gratitude  being  due  to  any  man  for  such  a  service.  It 
would  have  been  said,  "  Why,  he  only  did  his  duty,  what 
every  other  man  would  have  done  ;  it  was  too  simple  and 
plain  a  case  to  need  a  thought."  But  it  is  true  that, 
now,  even  for  this  we  ought  to  be  grateful.  And  this 
fact  is  another,  a  melancholy  proof  of  the  stride  which 
the  influence  of  slavery  has  made  within  a  few  years. 
It  throws  such  dimness  over  the  minds  of  freemen  that 
what  would  once  have  been  thought  the  alphabet  of  civil 
right,  they  hail  as  a  discovery. 

But  I  will  not  wander  from  my  subject  to  slavery  ;  it 
is  our  own  rights  which  are  at  issue ;  and  the  first  cry 
that  awakened  the  nation  to  the  importance  of  that 
issue,  was  the  voice  of  the  Ex-President.  On  that  "  gray 
discrowned  head "  were  fixed,  in  awful  suspense,  the 
eyes  of  the  nation.  Others  came  at  length  to  his  aid. 
I  wish  this  resolution  may  pass,  that,  as  far  as  in  us  lies, 


6  THE   RIGHT   OF   PETITION. 

he  may  feel  that  Massachusetts  echoes  back  his  cry  to 
arms,  is  ready  to  sustain  him  and  his  colleagues  in  their 
noble  course,  is  girding  herself  for  the  contest,  —  and, 
come  what  may,  will  see  to  it  that,  however  the  lights  of 
other  States  may  flicker  with  the  breeze,  her  torch  shall 
burn  bright  and  unchanging  on  the  eminence  which  she 
has  never  deserted  or  betrayed. 


LETTEK  TO   GEOEGE   THOMPSON. 


This  letter  was  written  in  England  in  the  summer  of  1839,  and 
read  by  Mr.  Thompson  at  the  Anniversary  of  the  Glasgow  Emanci- 
pation Society  in  that  year. 

MY  DEAR  THOMPSON,  —  I  am  very  sorry  to  say  no  to 
your  pressing  request,  but  I  cannot  come  to 
Glasgow  ;  duty  takes  me  elsewhere.  My  heart  will  be 
with  you  though,  on  the  1st  of  August,  and  I  need  not 
say  how  much  pleasure  it  would  give  me  to  meet,  on 
that  day  especially,  the  men  to  whom  my  country  owes 
so  much,  and  on  the  spot  dear  to  every  American  Aboli- 
tionist as  the  scene  of  your  triumphant  refutation  and 
stern  rebuke  of  Breckin ridge.  I  do  not  think  any  of 
you  can  conceive  the  feelings  with  which  an  American 
treads  such  scenes.  You  cannot  realize  the  debt  of 
gratitude  he  feels  to  be  due,  and  is  eager  to  pay  to  those 
who  have  spoken  in  behalf  of  humanity,  and  whose 
voices  have  come  to  him  across  the  water.  The  vale  of 
Leven,  Exeter  Hall,  Glasgow,  and  Birmingham  are 
consecrated  spots,  —  the  land  of  Scoble  and  Sturge,  of 
Wardlaw  and  Buxton,  of  Clarkson  and  O'Connell,  is 
hallowed  ground  to  us. 

Would  I  could  be  with  you,  to  thank  the  English 
Abolitionists,  in  the  slave's  name,  for  the  great  experi- 
ment they  have  tried  in  behalf  of  humanity  ;  for  proving 
in  the  face  of  the  world  the  safety  and  expediency  of 
immediate  emancipation ;  for  writing  out  the  demon- 


LETTER    TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON. 

stration  of  the  problem  as  if  with  letters  of  light  on  the 
blue  vault  of  heaven  ;  to  thank  them,  too,  for  the  fidelity 
with  which  they  have  rebuked  the  apathy,  and  de- 
nounced the  guilt  of  the  American  Church,  in  standing 
aloof  from  this  great  struggle  for  freedom  in  modern 
times.  The  appeals  and  exhortations  which  have  from 
time  to  time  gone  out  from  among  you  may  seem  to 
have  fallen  to  the  ground  in  vain  ;  but,  far  from  it,  they 
have  awakened,  in  some  degree  at  least,  a  slumbering 
Church  to  a  great  national  sin,  and  they  have  strength- 
ened greatly  hands  that  were  almost  ready  to  faint  in 
the  struggle  with  a  giant  evil.  We  need  them  still; 
spare  us  not  a  moment  from  your  Christian  rebukes ; 
give  us  line  upon  line  and  precept  upon  precept. 

Our  enterprise  is  eminently  a  religious  one,  dependent 
for  success  entirely  on  the  religious  sentiment  of  the 
people.  It  is  on  hearts  that  wait  not  for  the  results  of 
West  India  experiments,  that  look  to  duty  and  not  to 
consequences,  that  disdain  to  make  the  fears  of  one 
class  of  men  the  measure  of  the  rights  of  another,  that 
fear  no  evil  in  the  doing  of  God's  commands, — it  is  on 
such  that  the  weight  .of  our  cause  mainly  rests,  and  on 
the  conversion  of  those  whose  characters  will  make  them 
such  that  its  future  progress  must  depend.  It  is  upon 
just  such  minds  that  your  appeals  have  most  effect.  I 
hardly  exaggerate  when  I  say  that  the  sympathy  and 
brotherly  appeals  of  British  Christians  are  the  sheet- 
anchor  of  our  cause.  Did  they  realize  that  slavery  is  now 
most  frequently  defended  in  America  from  the  Bible, — 
that  when  Abolitionists  rebuke  the  Church  for  upholding 
it,  they  are  charged  with  hostility  to  Christianity  itself, 
they  would  feel  this.  If  we  construe  a  text  in  favor  of 
liberty,  it  is  set  down  to  partiality  and  prejudice.  A  Eu- 
ropean construction  is  decisive.  Our  rebukes  lose  much 
of  their  force  when  they  are  represented,  though  falsely, 


LETTER   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON.  9 

to  spring  from  personal  hostility,  —  from  a  zeal  which 
undue  attention  to  a  single  subject  has  made  to  outrun 
discretion.  Your  appeals  sink  deep,  —  they  can  neither 
be  avoided  nor  blunted  by  any  such  pretence,  and  their 
first  result  must  be  conviction.  Distance  lends  them 
something  of  the  awful  weight  of  the  verdict  of  poster- 
ity. May  they  never  cease  !  Let  the  light  of  your  ex- 
ample shine  constantly  upon  us,  till  our  Church,  beneath 
its  rays,  like  Egypt's  statue,  shall  break  forth  into  the 
music  of  consistent  action. 

England,  too,  is  the  fountain-head  of  our  literature. 
The  slightest  censure,  every  argument,  every  rebuke 
on  the  pages  of  your  reviews,  strikes  on  the  ear  of  the 
remotest  dweller  in  our  country.  Thank  God,  that  in 
this  the  sceptre  has  not  yet  departed  from  Judah,  that  it 
dwells  still  in  the  land  of  Vane  and  Milton,  of  Pym  and 
Hampden,  of  Sharp  and  Cowper  and  Wilberforce  :  — 

"  The  dead  but  sceptred  sovereigns,  who  still  rule 
Our  spirits  from  their  urns." 

May  those  upon  whom  rests  their  mantle  be  true  to  the 
realms  they  sway  !  You  have  influence  where  we  are 
not  even  heard.  The  prejudice  which  treads  under  foot 
the  vulgar  Abolitionist  dares  not  proscribe  the  literature 
of  the  world.  In  the  name  of  the  slave,  I  beseech  you, 
let  literature  speak  out,  in  deep,  stern,  and  indignant 
tones,  for  the  press, — 

"  like  the  air, 
Is  seldom  heard  but  when  it  speaks  in  thunder." 

I  am  rejoiced  to  hear  of  your  new  movement  in  regard 
to  India.  It  seals  the  fate  of  the  slave  system  in  Amer- 
ica. The  industry  of  the  pagan  shall  yet  wring  from 
Christian  hands  the  prey  they  would  not  yield  to  the  com- 
mands of  conscience  or  the  claims  of  religion.  Hasten 


10  LETTER   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON. 

the  day,  for  it  lies  with  you,  when  the  prophecy  of  our 
Randolph  (himself  a  slave-holder)  shall  be  fulfilled, — 
that  the  time  would  come  when  masters  would  fly 
their  slaves,  instead  of  slaves  their  masters,  so  valueless 
would  be  a  slave's  labor  in  comparison  with  his  support. 
To  you,  to  the  sunny  plains  of  Hindostan,  we  shall  owe 
it,  that  our  beautiful  prairies  are  unpolluted  by  the  foot- 
steps of  a  slave-holder;  that  the  march  of  civilization 
westward  will  be  changed  from  the  progress  of  the  man- 
acled slave  coffle,  at  the  bidding  of  the  lash,  to  the  quiet 
step  of  families,  carrying  peace,  intelligence,  and  religion 
as  their  household  gods.  Mr.  Clay  has  coolly  calculated 
the  value  of  sinews  and  muscles,  of  the  bodies  and  souls 
of  men,  and  then  asked  us  whether  we  could  reasonably 
expect  the  South  to  surrender  1,200,000,000  dollars  at 
the  bidding  of  abstract  .principles.  Be  just  to  India ; 
waken  that  industry  along  her  coast  which  oppression 
has  kept  landlocked  and  idle,  break  the  spell  which 
binds  the  genius  of  her  fertile  plains,  and  we  shall  see 
this  property  in  man  become  like  the  gold  in  India's 
fairy  tales,  —  dust  in  the  slave-holder's  grasp. 

You  cannot  imagine,  my  dear  brother,  the  impulse 
this  new  development  of  England's  power  will  give  the 
Antislavery  cause  in  America.  It  is  just  what  we  need 
to  touch  a  class  of  men  who  seem  almost  out  of  the  pale 
of  religious  influence.  Much  as  our  efforts  have  been 
blessed,  much  as  they  have  accomplished,  though  truth 
has  often  floated  further  on  the  shouts  of  a  mob  than 
our  feeble  voices  could  have  carried  it,  —  still  our  pro- 
gress has  served  but  to  show  us  more  clearly  the  Alps 
which  lie  beyond.  The  evil  is  so  deep-rooted,  the  weight 
of  interest  and  prejudice  on  its  side  so  vast,  —  ambi- 
tion clinging  to  political  power,  wealth  to  the  means  of 
further  gain,  —  that  we  have  sometimes  feared  they 
would  be  able  to  put  off  emancipation  till  the  charter  of 


LETTER   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON.  11 

the  slaves'  freedom  would  be  sealed  with  blood,  that  our 
day  of  freedom  would  be  like  Egypt's,  when  "  God  came 
forth  from  his  place,  his  right  hand  clothed  in  thunder," 
and  the  jubilee  of  Israel  was  echoed  by  Egypt's  wailing 
for  her  first-born. 

It  is  not  the  thoughtful,  the  sober-minded,  the  consci- 
entious, for  whom  we  fear.  With  them  truth  will  finally 
prevail.  It  is  not  that  we  want  eloquence  or  Christian 
zeal  enough  to  sustain  the  conflict  with  such,  and  with 
your  aid  to  come  off  conquerors.  We  know,  as  your 
Whately  says  of  Galileo,  that  if  Garrison  could  have 
been  answered,  he  had  never  been  mobbed ;  that  May's 
Christian  firmness,  Smith's  world-wide  philanthropy, 
Chapman's  daring  energy,  and  Weld's  soul  of  fire  can 
never  be  quelled,  and  will  finally  kindle  a  public  feeling 
before  which  opposition  must  melt  away.  But  how  hard 
to  reach  the  callous  heart  of  selfishness,  the  blinded 
conscience,  over  which  a  corrupt  Church  has  thrown  its 
shield  lest  any  ray  of  truth  pierce  its  dark  chambers. 
How  shall  we  address  that  large  class  of  men  with  whom 
dollars  are  always  a  weightier  consideration  than  duties, 
prices  current  stronger  argument  than  proofs  of  holy 
writ  ?  But  India  can  speak  in  tones  which  will  command 
a  hearing.  Our  appeal  has  been  entreaty,  for  the  times 
in  America  are  those  party  times,  when  — 

"  Virtue  itself  of  vice  must  pardon  beg, 
Yea,  curb  and  woo  for  leave  to  do  him  good." 

But  from  India  a  voice  comes  clothed  with  the  omnipo- 
tence of  self-interest,  and  the  wisdom  which  might  have 
been  slighted  from  the  pulpit,  will  be  to  such  men  oracu- 
lar from  the  market-place.  Gladly  will  we  make  a  pil- 
grimage and  bow  with  more  than  Eastern  devotion  on 
the  banks  of  the  Ganges,  if  his  holy  waters  shall  be  able 
to  wear  away  the  fetters  of  the  slave. 


12  LETTER   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON. 

God  speed  the  progress  of  your  society  !  may  it  soon 
find  in  its  ranks  the  whole  phalanx  of  sacred  and  veteran 
Abolitionists  !  No  single  divided  effort,  but  a  united  one 
to  grapple  with  the  wealth,  influence,  and  power  em- 
battled against  you.  Is  it  not  Schiller  who  says,  "  Divide 
the  thunder  into  single  notes,  and  it  becomes  a  lullaby 
for  children;  but  pour  it  forth  in  one  quick  peal,  and 
the  royal  sound  shall  shake  the  heavens "  ?  So  may 
it  be  with  you !  and  God  grant  that  without  waiting  for 
the  United  States  to  be  consistent,  before  our  ears  are 
dust,  the  jubilee  of  emancipated  millions  may  reach  us 
from  Mexico  to  the  Potomac,  and  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Rocky  Mountains. 

Yours  truly  and  most  affectionately, 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 


COTTON,   THE   CORNER-STONE  OF 
SLAVERY. 


Speech  delivered  at  the  First  Annual  Meeting  of  the  British  India 
Society,  held  at  Freemason's  Hall,  London,  July  6,  1840.  In  pre- 
senting a  resolution  relating  to  the  effect  of  the  cultivation  of  cotton 
in  British  India  upon  slavery  in  the  United  States,  Mr.  Phillips 
said :  — 

IT  is  now  ten  years  since  the  friends  of  the  negro  in 
America  first  put  forth  the  demand  for  the  uncondi- 
tional abolition  of  slavery.  They  thought  they  would 
have  nothing  more  to  do  than  to  show  that  emancipa- 
tion would  be  safe,  that  it  would  be  just ;  and  having 
proved  that,  that  it  would,  in  such  a  liberty-loving  coun- 
try, at  once  be  cordially  and  willingly  acceded  to  in  every 
State  from  Maine  to  Georgia ;  but  at  the  end  of  the 
long  period  of  ten  years  they  have  done  almost  nothing. 
Had  it  not  been  for  their  perseverance  and  zeal,  the 
more  devoted  because  of  the  difficulties  they  had  met 
with,  long,  long  ago  they  would  have  been  put  down, 
they  must  have  folded  their  arms  in  despair,  and  have 
given  up  all  hope  of  bloodless  emancipation.  When 
they  heard  of  the  British  India  Society  and  its  objects, 
the  news  burst  upon  their  ear,  and  was  as  startling  and 
as  grateful  as  must  have  been  the  first  cry  of  land  to  Co- 
lumbus when  he  was  plunged  almost  in  despair.  [Cheers.] 
They  through  it  saw  again  a  peaceful  hope  for  the  slave, 
and  then  every  friend  of  abolition  rallied  round  it,  and 


14  COTTON,   THE   CORNER-STONE   OF   SLAVERY. 

placed  their  plan  prominently  before  the  country. 
Many  at  first  doubted  :  they  deemed  it  but  one  more  of 
the  many  fables  to  which  India  had  given  rise;  they 
deemed  it  a  very  fiction,  but  I  trust  through  the  exer- 
tions of  the  society  they  will  find  it  — 

"  Truth  severe,  in  fairy  fiction  dressed."     [Cheers.] 

If  it  is  a  fact  that  there  are  24,000,000  acres  within 
reach  of  the  Ganges,  upon  which  cotton  can  be  grown, 
now  lying  waste  ;  if  it  is  true  that  there  are  54,000,000 
men  anxious  for  labor,  and  that  their  services  can  be 
had  for  a  penny  or  twopence  a  day  ;  if  they  can  bring 
their  cotton  to  Liverpool  at  fourpence  per  pound,— 
how  can  slavery  stand  against  it  at  a  cost  of  a  shilling 
a  day  ?  Commerce  is  incompatible  with  slavery  :  in  Eng- 
land it  has  put  down  the  system  of  villeinage  ;  in  France 
it  put  an  end  to  vassalage  ;  it  has  done  more  than 
Christianity,  of  which  it  is  a  good  forerunner.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  immutable  of  truths,  that  the  moment  a  free 
hand  touches  an  article,  that  moment  it  falls  from  the 
hand  of  the  slave.  Witness  the  beet  sugar  of  France ; 
the  moment  it  was  made,  her  West  India  colonists 
applied  for  protection  against  the  eternal  principles  of 
commerce  and  freedom.  [Hear,  hear !]  So  it  was  with 
indigo.  Formerly  it  was  all  slave  produce  ;  now,  not  an 
ounce  of  it  is.  I  need  not  give  further  examples,  for  the 
principle  is  as  immutable  as  the  laws  of  Nature.  No 
article  can  be  grown  and  manufactured  at  the  same  time 
by  both  free  and  slave  labor.  The  fathers  of  this  coun- 
try thought  in  the  settlement  of  their  independence  they 
had  put  down  slavery  :  but,  unfortunately,  in  1786, 
when  it  was  about  to  cease,  a  small  bag  of  cotton-seed 
was  found  in  Carolina ;  it  was  almost  by  accident  put  in 
the  ground,  and  it  was  found  that  cotton  could  be 
grown,  and  so  slavery  was  perpetuated.  Slavery  can 


COTTON,   THE    CORNER-STONE   OF   SLAVERY.  15 

only  be  maintained  by  monopoly;  the  moment  she  comes/ 
into  competition  with  free  labor,  she  dies.      Cotton  is( 
the  corner-stone  of  slavery  in  America ;  remove  it,  and  \ 
slavery  receives  its  mortal  blow.     [Hear,  hear !] 

I  am  glad  to  see  such  a  society  grow  up  in  the  land  of 
Clarkson  and  of  Wilberforce,  the  great  fathers  of  Anti- 
slavery.  I  am  glad  that  England  is  awakening  to  a  sense 
of  her  power,  and  I  pray  God  she  may  arouse  herself  as 
one  man,  and  exert  that  power  for  the  sake  of  humanity 
all  over  the  world. 

It  is  not  the  fault  of  America  that  slavery  exists  ;  it  is) 
the  fault  of  England  that  bribed  her  with  £14,000,000  si 
year,  and  it  is  the  price  of  cotton  in  the  Liverpool  mar-\ 
ket   that   signs   the  death  warrant  of  the  poor  slaves. 
[Cheers.]     There  are  a  class  of  men  in  America  that 
would  not  listen  to  the  voice  of   an  angel,  or  to  one 
risen  fromv  the  dead.     The  denunciations  of  O'Connell 
are  nothing  to  them,  while  the  balance  is  on  the  right 
side  of  the  ledger  ;  they  must  have  Antislavery  preached 
in  their  counting-houses,  or  it  will  never  be  preached  at 
all.     [Cheers.]     The  only  voice  they  will  listen  to  is  the 
Gazette  that  publishes  them   bankrupts,  and   the  auc- 
tioneer who  knocks  down  their  houses  to  the  highest 
bidder.      It  is  England  that  delays  that  day  by  paying 
them   £14,000,000  annually  for  their  support.     [Hear, 
hear  !]     One  hundred  per  cent  profit  is  better  than  the 
most  eloquent  lips  that  ever  spoke.     You  may  think  ifr) 
strange  for  an  American  to  speak  thus  of  a  system  thatj 
is  to  make  bankrupt  one  half  of  his  country,  and  par-S 
alyze  the  other ;  but  though  I  love  my  country,  I  love  \ 
my  countrymen  more,  and  these  countrymen  are  the  col-  ' 
ored   men  of  America.     [Cheers.]     For  their  sakes  l\ 
say,  welcome  the  bolt  that  smites  our  commerce  to  the  (^ 
dust,  if  with  it,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  it  will  strike  off   ) 
the  fetters  of  the  slave.     [Cheers.]     But  I  do  not  fear 


16      COTTON,  THE  CORNER-STONE  OF  SLAVERY. 

British  India.     Deliver  America   from   the   incubus  of 

slavery,  and  her  beautiful  prairies  will  beat  the  banks  of 

x-tjie  Ganges.     Free  America  from  the  incubus  of  slavery, 

\and  Yankee  skill  in  the  fruitful  valleys  of  the  South  will 

/beat  England  and  British  India  in  any  market  in  the 

world. 

I  beg  permission  to  read  to  the  meeting  the  mes- 
sage of  one  who  may  justly  be  considered  a  far  higher 
authority  than  any  who  have  spoken  from  this  platform ; 
and  observe,  this  is  not  an  after-thought.  It  is  not  a 
new  project,  for  years  back  it  had  the  devoted  advocacy 
of  Cropper,  and  fifteen  years  ago,  Clarkson,  in  a  private 
letter  to  a  friend,  suggested  it  as  the  only  remedy  for 
slavery  in  the  transatlantic  world.  You  will  pardon  me 
for  reading  a  portion  of  the  speech  the  venerable  Clark- 
son  prepared  in  writing,  and  intended  to  deliver  at  the 
opening  of  the  General  Antislavery  Convention  :  - 

"  My  dear  friends,  }*ou  have  a  most  difficult  task  to  per- 
form ;  it  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  tho  extirpation  of 
slavery  from  the  whole  world.  Your  opponents  who  appear 
the  most  formidable  are  the  cotton  and  other  planters  in  the 
southern  parts  of  the  United  States  ;  who,  I  am  grieved  to 
sa}r,  hold  more  than  two  million  of  their  fellow-creatures  in 
the  most  cruel  bondage.  Now  we  know  of  these  men,  that 
they  are  living  in  the  daily  habits  of  injustice,  cruelty,  and 
oppression,  and  may  be  therefore  said  to  have  no  true  fear  of 
God,  nor  any  just  sense  of  religion.  You  cannot,  therefore, 
expect  to  have  the  same  hold  upon  the  consciences  of  these 
that  you  have  upon  the  consciences  of  others.  How  then  can 
you  get  at  these  so  as  to  influence  their  conduct?  There  is 
but  one  way ;  you  must  endeavor  to  make  them  feel  their 
guilt  in  its  consequences.  You  must  endeavor,  b}-  all  justifi- 
able means,  to  affect  their  temporal  interests.  You  must 
endeavor,  among  other  things,  to  have  the  produce  of  free 
tropical  labor  brought  into  the  markets  of  Europe,  and  under- 
sell them  there  ;  and  if  you  can  do  this,  your  victory  is  sure. 


17 

*k  Now  that  this  is  possible,  that  this  may  be  done,  there  is  no 
question.  The  East  India  Company  alone  can  do  it  of  them- 
selves, and  the}'  can  do  it  by  means  that  are  perfectly  moral 
and  pacific,  according  to  your  own  principles,  —  namely,  by 
the  cultivation  of  the  earth,  and  by  the  employment  of  free 
labor.  They  ma}*,  if  they  please,  not  only  have  the  high  honor 
of  abolishing  slavery  and  the  slave  trade,  but  the  advantage 
of  increasing  their  revenue  beyond  all  calculation  :  for,  in  the 
first  place,  they  have  land  in  their  possession  twenty  times 
more  than  equal  to  the  supply  of  all  Europe  with  tropical 
produce ;  in  the  second  place,  they  can  procure,  not  tens  of 
thousands,  but  tens  of  millions  of  free  laborers  to  work ;  in 
the  third,  what  is  of  the  greatest  consequence  in  this  case,  the 
price  of  labor  with  these  is  only  from  a  penny  to  three  half- 
pence a  day.  What  slavery  can  stand  against  these  prices? 

"  I  learn,  too,  from  letters  which  I  have  seen  from  India, 
and  from  the  Company's  own  reports,  that  they  have  long 
been  engaged  —  shall  I  say  providentially  engaged?  —  in 
preparing  seeds  for  the  cultivation  of  cotton  there.  Now,  if 
we  take  into  considerations  all  these  previous  preparations 
(by  which  it  appears  that  they  are  ready  to  start) ,  and  add 
to  this  the  consideration  that  they  could  procure,  not  tens  of 
thousands,  but  tens  of  millions  of  free  laborers  to  work,  — 
1  speak  from  authority,  —  I  believe  that  if  they  would  fol- 
low up  their  plans  heartily  and  with  spirit,  according  to  their 
means,  in  the  course  of  six  years  they  would  materially 
affect  the  price  of  this  article  at  market,  and  in  twelve  that 
they  would  be  able  to  turn  the  tide  completely  against  the 
growers  of  it  in  the  United  States. 

"  And  here  I  would  observe  that  this  is  not  a  visionary  or 
fanciful  statement.  Look  at  the  American  newspapers ;  look 
at  the  American  pamphlets  which  have  come  out  upon  this 
subject ;  look  at  the  opinion  of  the  celebrated  Judge  Jay  on 
this  subject  also :  all,  all  confess,  and  the  planters  too  con- 
fess —  but  the  latter  with  fear  and  trembling  —  that  if  the 
East  India  Company  should  resolve  upon  the  cultivation  of 
tropical  products  in  India,  and  carry  it  to  the  extent  to  which 

2 


18  COTTON,   THE   CORNER-STONE    OF   SLAVERY. 

they  would    be    capable  of  carrying  it,  it  is  all  over  with 
American  slavery. 

"  Gentlemen,  I  have  mentioned  these  circumstances,  not 
with  a  view  of  dictating  to  you  any  particular  plan  of  opera- 
tions, but  only  to  show  you  the  possibility  of  having  your 
great  object  accomplished,  and  this  to  its  fullest  extent ;  for 
what  I  have  said  relatively  to  the  United  States  is  equally 
applicable  to  Cuba,  Brazil,  and  other  parts  of  the  South 
American  continent,  —  and  besides,  the  East  India  Company 
have  twenty  times  more  land  than  is  sufficient  to  enable  them 
to  compete  with  them  all." 

The  proprietors  and  conductors  of  the  American  news- 
papers, to  which  Mr.  Clarkson  refers,  are  the  agents  of 
the  banks,  and  the  agents  of  the  slave-holders.  It  is  not 
their  policy  to  endeavor  to  raise  and  secure  a  high  price 
in  the  market  of  Liverpool,  for  fear  the  eyes  of  Great 
Britain  should  be  turned  to  her  possessions  in  the  East, 
where,  as  they  express  it,  there  are  no  doubt  exhaustless 
resources  for  the  cultivation  of  cotton ;  for  they  see  that 
if  the  attention  of  Great  Britain  were  directed  to  that 
quarter,  America  would  lose  the  market  and  slavery  to- 
gether. [Hear,  hear  !]  Twice  they  thought  the  death- 
blow was  given  to  the  system  in  America,  and  twice  have 
they  been  disappointed.  But  take  care,  in  carrying  out 
this  plan,  that  the  protection  thrown  over  India  does  not 
bring  forth  into  life  weeds  as  well  as  flowers.  Take 
care  that  slavery  does  not  gather  strength  with  the  rest 
of  your  institutions  which  will  be  strengthened  in  India  ; 
and  that  it  does  not,  as  it  has  done  in  America,  monopo- 
lize the  resources  of  another  world  in  the  East.  This  is 
the  only  danger  that  can  be  anticipated  in  the  progress 
of  this  society.  Take  care  that  in  driving  our  cotton 
from  your  shores,  you  do  not  admit  a  single  pound  that 
is  equally  blood-stained  with  our  own. 


IKISH    SYMPATHY    WITH    THE 
ABOLITION  MOVEMENT. 


At  a  meeting  in  favor  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  held  in  Faneuil  Hall,  Boston,  Friday  evening,  Janu- 
ary 28,  1842,  the  chairman  presented  an  Irish  address  to  the  Irish 
residents  of  the  United  States  signed  by  Daniel  O'Connell,  Father 
Mathew,  and  sixty  thousand  other  Irishmen,  calling  upon  all  Irish 
men  in  America  to  espouse  the  Antislavery  cause.  Mr.  Phillips 
then  offered  the  following  resolutions,  which  after  his  advocacy 
were  adopted  by  acclamation  :  — 

Resolved,  That  we  rejoice  that  the  voice  of  O'Connell,  which  now 
shakes  the  three  kingdoms,  has  poured  across  the  waters  a  thunder- 
peal for  the  cause  of  liberty  in  our  own  land;  and  that  Father 
Mathew,  having  lifted  with  one  hand  five  millions  of  his  own 
countrymen  into  moral  life,  has  stretched  forth  the  other  —  which 
may  Heaven  make  equally  potent  —  to  smite  off  the  fetters  of  the 
American  slave. 

Resolved,  That  we  receive  with  the  deepest  gratitude  the  names  of 
the  sixty  thousand  Irishmen  who,  in  the  trial-hour  of  their  own 
struggle  for  liberty,  have  not  forgotten  the  slave  on  this  side  the 
water  ;  that  we  accept  with  triumphant  exultation  the  address  they 
have  forwarded  to  us,  and  pledge  ourselves  to  circulate  it  through  the 
length  and  breadth  of  our  land,  till  the  pulse  of  every  man  who 
claims  Irish  parentage  beats  true  to  the  claims  of  patriotism  and 
humanity. 

Mr.  Phillips  said  :  — 

I  HOLD  in  my  hand,  Mr.  Chairman,  a  resolution  ex- 
pressive of  our  thanks  to  the  sixty  thousand  Irish- 
men who  have  sent  us  that  token  of  their  sympathy  and 
interest,  and  specially  to  those  high  and  gallant  spirits 
who  lead  the  noble  list.     I  must  say  that  never  have  I 


20        IRISH    SYMPATHY   WITH    THE    ABOLITION   MOVEMENT. 

stood  in  the  presence  of  an  audience  with  higher  hopes 
of  the  rapid  progress  and  success  of  our  cause  than 
now.  I  remember  witli  what  devoted  earnestness,  with 
what  unfaltering  zeal,  Ireland  has  carried  on  so  many 
years  the  struggle  for  her  own  freedom.  It  is  from 
such  men,  whose  hearts  lost  no  jot  of  their  faith  in  the 
grave  of  Emmett ;  over  whose  zeal  the  loss  of  Curran  and 
Grattan  could  throw  no  damp ;  who  are  now  turning  the 
trophies  of  one  field  into  weapons  for  new  conquest ; 
whom  a  hireling  press  and  prejudiced  public  could  never 
sever  a  moment  from  O'Connell's  side,  —  it  is  from  the 
sympathy  of  such  men  that  we  have  a  right  to  hope 
much. 

The  image  of  the  generous  Isle  not  only  comes  to  us 
"  crowned  with  the  spoil  of  every  science,  and  decked 
with  the  wreath  of  every  muse,"  but  we  cannot  forget 
that  she  lent  to  Waterloo  the  sword  which  cut  the 
despot's  "  shattered  sceptre  through ;  "  and  to  American 
ears,  the  crumbled  walls  of  St.  Stephen's  yet  stand  to 
echo  the  eloquence  of  her  Burke,  when  at  the  foot  of  the 
British  throne  he  took  his  place  side  by  side  with  that 
immortal  rebel  [pointing  to  the  picture  of  Washington]. 
From  a  priest  of  the  Catholic  Church  we  might  expect 
superiority  to  that  prejudice  against  color  which  freezes 
the  sympathies  of  our  churches,  when  Humanity  points 
to  the  slave.  I  remember  that  African  lips  may  join  in 
the  chants  of  the  Church,  unrebuked  even  under  the 
proud  dome  of  St.  Peter's  ;  and  I  have  seen  the  colored 
man  in  the  sacred  dress  pass  with  priest  and  student 
beneath  the  frowning  portals  of  the  College  of  the  Pro- 
paganda at  Rome,  with  none  to  sneer  at  his  complexion, 
or  repulse  him  from  society.  I  remember  that  a  long 
line  of  Popes,  from  Leo  to  Gregory,  have  denounced  the 
sin  of  making  merchandise  of  men ;  that  the  voice  of 
Rome  was  the  first  to  be  heard  against  the  slave-trade ; 


IRISH    SYMPATHY    WITH    THE    ABOLITION    MOVEMENT.        21 

and  that  the  bull  of  Gregory  XVI.,  forbidding  every  true 
Catholic  to  touch  the  accursed  thing,  is  yet  hardly  a  year 
old. 

Ireland  is  the  land  of  agitation  and  agitators.     We .  £ 
may  well  learn  a  lesson  from  her  in  the  battle  for  human    i 
rights.    Her  philosophy  is  no  recluse  ;  she  doffs  the  cowl, 
and  quits  the   cloister,  to  grasp  in  friendly  effort  the 
hands  of  the  people.     No  pulses  beat  truer  to  liberty  and 
humanity  than  those  which  in  Dublin  quicken  at  every 
good  word  from  abolition  on  this  side  the  ocean  ;  there 
can  be  no  warmer  words  of  welcome  than  those  which 
greet  the  American  Abolitionists  on  their  thresholds. 

Let  not  any  persuade  us,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  the 
question  of  slavery  is  no  business  of  ours,  but  belongs 
entirely  to  the  South.  Northern  opinion,  the  weight  of 
Northern  power,  is  the  real  slave-holder  of  America. 
Their  presence  in  the  Union  is  the  Carolinians'  charter  of 
safety,  —  the  dread  of  the  Northern  bayonet  is  their  real 
police.  Without  it  the  whole  South  were  but  the  deck  of 
a  larger  "  Creole,"  1  and  the  physical  strength  of  the  bond- 
man, as  on  board  that  vessel,  would  sweep  the  oppressor 
from  his  presence.  This  very  fact,  that  our  hands  rivet 
the  fetters  of  the  slave,  binds  us  to  raise  our  voice  the 
more  earnestly  on  his  side.  That  Union  which  takes 
from  him  the  power  of  physical  resistance  is  bound  to 
exert  for  him  all  the  weight  of  a  correct  public  opinion, 
—  to  stir  in  his  behalf  all  the  depths  of  the  heart  of 

1  The  brig  "  Creole,"  of  Richmond,  Va.,  left  Norfolk  for  New  Orleans, 
October  30,  1841,  with  a  cargo  of  tobacco  and  135  slaves  on  board.  No- 
vember 7,  the  slaves  took  possession  of  the  boat,  killed  the  second  mate  in 
the  struggle,  and  wounded  some  others  who  resisted,  but  otherwise  in- 
flicted no  personal  injury.  They  then  turned  the  boat  toward  Nassau, 
New  Providence.  The  ring-leaders  were  there  arrested  and  held  for 
mutiny  and  murder,  and  the  rest  of  the  slaves  were  set  free.  The 
British  government  refused  to  extradite  the  prisoners,  or  restore  the 
slaves  to  their  masters. 


22       IRISH   SYMPATHY   WITH    THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT. 

humanity.  Every  lover  of  peace,  every  one  who  hates 
bloodshed,  must  rejoice  that  it  is  in  the  power  of 
Northern  opinion  to  say  to  slavery,  cease,  —  and  it 
ceases ;  that  the  Northern  Church  can  break  every  yoke 
and  bid  the  oppressed  go  free,  at  her  pleasure. 

I  trust  in  that  love  of  liberty  which  every  Irishman 
brings  to  the  country  of  his  adoption,  to  make  him  true 
to  her  cause  at  the  ballot-box,  till  he  throws  no  vote  with- 
out asking  if  the  hand  to  which  he  is  about  to  trust 
political  power  will  use  it  for  the  slave.  When  an 
American  was  introduced  to  O'Connell  in  the  lobby  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  he  asked,  without  putting  out 
his  hand,  u  Are  you  from  the  South?"  "  Yes,  sir." 
"  A  slave-holder,  I  presume  ?  "  "  Yes,  sir."  "  Then," 
said  the  great  liberator,  "  I  have  no  hand  for  you ! "  and 
stalked  away.  Shall  his  countrymen  trust  that  hand 
with  political  power  which  O'Connell  deemed  it  pollution 
to  touch?  [Cheers.] 

We  remember,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  when  a  jealous 
disposition  tore  from  the  walls  of  the  city  hall  of  Dublin 
the  picture  of  Henry  Grattan,the  act  did  but  endear  him 
the  more  to  Ireland.  The  slavocracy  of  our  land 
thinks  to  expel  that  "  old  man  eloquent,"  with  the  dignity 
of  seventy  winters  on  his  brow  [pointing  to  the  picture 
of  John  Quincy  Adams],  from  the  halls  of  Congress. 
They  will  find  him  only  the  more  lastingly  fixed  in  the 
hearts  of  his  countrymen.  [Tremendous  and  continued 
cheers.] 

Mr.  Chairman,  we  stand  in  the  presence  of  at  least 
the  name  of  Father  Mathew ;  we  remember  the  millions 
who  pledge  themselves  to  temperance  from  his  lips.  I 
hope  his  countrymen  will  join  me  in  pledging  here  eter- 
nal hostility  to  slavery.  Will  you  ever  return  to  his  mas- 
ter the  slave  who  once  sets  foot  on  the  soil  of  Massa- 
chusetts ?  [No,  no,  no  !  ]  Will  you  ever  raise  to  office 


IRISH    SYMPATHY    WITH    THE    ABOLITION    MOVEMENT.       23 

or  power  the  man  who  will  not  pledge  his  utmost  effort 
against  slavery  ?     [No,  no,  no !  ] 

Then  may  not  we  hope  well  for  freedom  ?  Thanks  to 
those  noble  men  who  battle  in  her  cause  the  world  over, 
the  "  ocean  of  their  philanthropy  knows  no  shore." 
Humanity  has  no  country ;  and  I  am  proud,  here  in 
Faneuil  Hall,  —  fit  place  to  receive  their  message,  —  to 
learn  of  O'Connell  fidelity  to  freedom,  and  of  Father 
Mathew  love  to  the  real  interests  of  man.  [Great 
applause.] 


WELCOME    TO   GEORGE  THOMPSON. 


A  reception  to  George  Thompson,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  November  15, 
1850,  was  broken  up  by  an  angry  mob.  The  meeting  was  therefore 
adjourned  to  Worcester,  and  supplemented  by  other  meetings  in 
several  cities.  At  the  reception  in  Lynn,  November  26,  1850,  Mr. 
Phillips  delivered  the  following  speech  :  — 

THIS  is  certainly,  fellow-citizens,  a  glad  sight  for  my 
eloquent  friend  to  look  upon  ;  these  enthusiastic 
crowds,  pressing  to  extend  to  him  a  welcome,  and  do 
their  part  in  atonement  for  the  scenes  of  1835,  and  to 
convince  him  that  even  now,  NOT  as  Boston  speaks  so 
speaks  the  State  [cheers]  ;  and  yet,  it  is  not  in  our  power, 
my  friends,  with  all  our  numbers  or  zeal,  to  tender  to  our 
guest  so  real,  so  impressive  a  compliment  as  that  with 
which  Faneuil  Hall  flattered  him,  the  15th  day  of  this 
month.  "  Indignation,"  it  has  been  well  said,  "  is  itself 
flavored  with  a  season  of  compliment."  How  potent 
has  a  man  a  right  to  consider  his  voice,  when  a  whole 
nation  rises  to  gag  him  !  No  sooner  does  our  friend 
announce  his  intention  of  visiting  these  shores,  no  sooner 
does  he  set  his  face  hitherward,  than  the  whole  press 
howls  in  concert,  and  alarm  encamps  all  along  our  sea- 
board. One  would  imagine  his  brow  must  be  like  that 
of  the  archangel  Byron  describes,  and  that  — 

"  Where  he  gazed,  a  gloom  pervaded  space." 

No  sooner  does  he  land,  than  mob  law  is  triumphant  to 
silence  him.    Certainly  the  humblest  man  must  be  puffed 


WELCOME   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON.  25 

up  by  such  unequivocal  attestations  to  his  importance. 
[Cheers.]  To  suppose  Faneuil  Hall  roused  to  such  a 
pitch  by  the  advent  of  any  insignificant  person,  to  sup- 
pose the  Daily  Advertiser  awakened  to  knowledge  of  any 
so  recent  event  by  a  trifling  matter,  would  be  — 

"ocean  into  tempest  tossed, 
To  waft  a  feather  or  to  drown  a  fly."     [Laughter  and  cheers.] 

Daniel  Webster  once  said,  in  this  country,  that  in  the 
case  of  a  suspected  murderer,  "  suicide  is  confession." 
In  the  same  way,  mob  law  now  is  confession  [cheers],— 
confession  that  the  land  knows  itself  guilty,  cannot  abide 
the  gaze  of  honest  men,  and  dreads  the  testimony  against 
itself  of  a  voice  whose  trumpet  notes  have  rung  out  over 
so  many  well-fought  fields  of  reform,  and  at  whose  sum- 
mons the  best  spirits  of  our  father-land  are  still  glad  to 
gather.  [Loud  cheers.]  It  was  an  Irish  character  in 
one  of  Lever's  novels,  I  believe,  who  first  proclaimed 
that  "  he  had  rather,  at  any  time,  knock  a  man  down, 
than  argue  with  him ; "  but  the  preference  seems 
to  have  found  now  admirers  off  of  the  Green  Isle. 
[Cheers.]  I  arn  not  sure,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  we  are 
correct,  after  all,  in  ascribing  all  this  indignation  in  the 
city  to  the  fear  of  national  rebuke  at  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Thompson.  I  am  afraid  it  was  no  such  honorable  sen- 
timent as  the  dread  of  being  held  up  to  the  gaze  of 
other  nations,  u  a  mildewed  ear  blasting  our  wholesome 
brothers  ;  "  of  having  painted  to  us  — 

"...  the  exulting  tyrant's  sneer 

Borne  to  us  from  the  old  world's  thrones, 

And  all  their  grief,  who,  pining,  hear, 

In  sunless  mines  and  dungeons  drear, 

How  Freedom's  land  her  faith  disowns !  " 

I  fear  we  must  trace  it  to  a  baser  origin.     These  are  the 
hurricane   months   of   American   politics.      Every   day 


26  WELCOME   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON. 

seems  to  have  a  storm  of  its  own  ;  and  the  Whig  party, 
especially,  is  just  now  scudding  under  the  bare  poles  of 
despair !  [Cheers.]  For  the  first  time  within  the 
memory  of  the  oldest  inhabitant,  Boston  has  been  hurled 
from  its  supremacy  over  the  State.  Cushioned  in  the 
luxurious  seclusion  of  city  life,  party  leaders  began  to 
believe  the  mass  of  the  people  as  heartless  as  themselves. 
Willing  themselves  to  be  slave-catchers,  they  vainly 
thought  there  were  many  others  like  them,  forgetting 
that  God  made  the  country,  while  man  made  the  town. 
[Loud  cheers.] 

The  unwelcome  discovery  that  there  were  men  outside 
the  city,  who  existed  for  other  purposes  than  merely  to 
register  the  edicts  of  State  Street,  came  with  stunning 
suddenness  upon  them ;  and  their  cup  was  both  so  bitter 
and  so  full  that  it  was  perhaps  cruel  on  our  part  to  add 
a  drop  to  its  waters  of  penance,  and  especially  so  big 
and  bitter  a  drop  as  George  Thompson.  [Cheers.]  We 
should  have  chosen  our  time  better.  The  child,  robbed 
for  the  first  time  of  its  rattle,  should  have  been  allowed 
time  to  win  over  its  petulance.  I  look  upon  the  scene 
in  Faneuil  Hall  as  made  up  full  as  much  of  the  last 
spasms  of  defeated  Whiggery, —  Webster  Whiggery,  I 
mean, —  as  of  hatred  for  George  Thompson.  [Cheers.] 
And  it  is  in  connection,  partly,  with  this  point,  that  I 
hail  these  tokens  of  welcome  extended  to  him  here,  and 
at  Worcester,  as  of  especial  value.  It  is  of  great  im- 
portance, just  now,  that  the  South  and  the  nation  should 
understand  Massachusetts.  Mr.  Webster  has  been  try- 
ing to  persuade  everybody  that  he  is  the  State.  Some 
leading  presses  have  labored  to  show  that  Webster, 
Whigdom,  and  Massachusetts  were  identical.  While 
things  remained  as  they  were,  it  was  impossible  to  offer 
conclusive  testimony  to  the  contrary.  Public  meetings 
are  here  to-day,  and  gone  to-morrow.  Protests,  the  most 


WELCOME    TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON.  27 

emphatic,  from  leading  individuals  are  easily  doffed 
aside  as  mere  outbreaks  of  individual  enthusiasm.  Men 
judge  the  Commonwealth  by  the  ballot-box.  When  she 
launches  her  crusade,  say  they,  we  shall  see  her  drop 
anchor  in  the  legislature.  [Cheers.]  Thank  God, 
November  has  ripened  this  evidence  for  us.  We  have 
set  up  a  mile-stone  of  progress  which  the  blindest  can 
feel,  if  he  cannot  see.  [Cheers.]  That  a  large  party 
should  follow  Mr.  Webster  anywhere  is  not  surprising. 
You  know,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  was  once  among  that  crowd 
who  are  said  to  be  "  bred  to  the  bar,"  —  and  very  kind  of 
them  surely,  since  the  bar  is  never  bread  to  them.  Well, 
sir,  I  remember  an  insurance  case  which  illustrates  my 
meaning.  You  recollect  that  when  an  insured  article 
is  lost  from  any  defect  of  its  own,  the  insurers  are  not 
liable.  Now  in  carrying  some  sheep  from  one  port  to 
another,  the  ram,  getting  frightened,  leaped  overboard, 
and  the  whole  flock  followed.  [Cheers.]  The  insurers 
pleaded,  in  defence  of  a  suit  brought  against  them,  that 
it  was  an  inherent  defect  in  the  article.  [Cheers.] 
Now  when  Mr.  Webster,  standing  on  that  majestic 
height  whence  the  hopes  of  the  North,  "  with  airy 
tongues  that  syllable  men's  names,"  summon  him  to 
the  noblest  task  ever  given  to  man,  when  such  an  one 
plunged  into  the  Secretary  of  Stateship  and  nowhere 
[cheers],  it  was  to  be  expected  that  a  large  portion  of 
the  old  Whig  party  should  follow  him.  It  is  an  inherent 
defect  of  the  article.  [Loud  laughter.]  Thank  Heaven, 
however,  that  when  even  he  shouldered  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Bill,  there  were  so  many  fugitives  from  his  own 
party  that  hardly  enough  were  left  to  count  them. 
[Cheers.] 

Now,  at  least,  the  question  is  settled  where  Massachu- 
setts stands ;  so  unequivocally,  that  even  the  Daily 
Advertiser,  which  never  announced  the  nomination  of 


28  WELCOME   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON. 

Horace  Mann  until  after  he  was  elected  [cheers  and 
laughter],  even  that  late  riser  may  be  considered  posted 
on  this  point.  1  remember  Mr.  Webster  once  said,  in 
reply  to  some  taunt  of  Hay  lie's,  "  There  is  Massachu- 
setts !  Behold  her,  and  judge  for  yourselves  !  There  is 
Concord  and  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill,  and  there 
they  will  remain  forever."  Let  us  borrow  the  formula, 
and  when  anybody  in  the  United  States  Senate  doubts 
our  position,  let  us  cry,  "  There  is  Massachusetts  !  Be- 
hold her,  and  judge  for  yourselves  !  There  is  George 
Thompson,  welcomed  by  the  '  heart,'  if  he  could  not  be 
by  the  pocket  of  the  Commonwealth.  [Cheers.]  There 
is  Horace  Mann  in,  and  Charles  W.  Upham  out,  and 
there  they  will  remain  forever.  {Cheers.]  There  is 
George  S.  Boutwell  in,  and  George  N.  Briggs  out,  and 
there  may  they  remain  forever."  [Enthusiastic  cheers.] 
I  cannot  however  quite  consent  to  say  that  our  friend 
could  not  be  heard  in  Faneuil  Hall.  That  glorious  old 
name  does  not  belong  to  bricks  and  mortar.  As  the 
Scottish  chief  boasted  that  "  where  McGregor  sits  is  the 
head  of  the  table,"  so  where  Freedom  dwells,  where  all 
lips  are  free,  wherever  the  foe  of  slavery  is  welcome,  no 
matter  whether  an  English  or  an  African  sun  may  have 
looked  upon  him,  there  is  Faneuil  Hall.  [Cheers.] 
Ubi  Libertas,  ibi  patria  was  Franklin's  motto,  which 
Bancroft's  lines  render  well  enough, — 

"  Where  dwell  the  brave,  the  generous,  and  the  free, 
Oh,  there  is  Rome  —  no  other  Rome  for  me."     [Cheers.] 

Our  welcome  to  George  Thompson  to-night  is  only  the 
joy  we  have  in  grasping  his  hand,  and  seeing  him  with 
our  own  eyes.  But  we  do  not  feel  that,  for  the  last  fif- 
teen years,  he  has  been  absent  from  us,  much  less  from 
the  battle  to  whose  New  England  phalanx  we  welcome 
him  to-night.  Every  blow  struck  for  the  right  in  Eng- 


WELCOME   TO   GEORGE   THOMPSON.  29 

land  is  felt  wherever  English  is  spoken.  We  may  have 
declared  political  independence,  but  while  we  speak  our 
mother-tongue,  the  sceptre  of  intellect  can  never  depart 
from  Judah,  —  the  mind  of  America  must  ever  be,  to  a 
great  extent,  the  vassal  of  England. 

'•  Two  stars  keep  not  their  motion  in  one  sphere," 

and  whoever  hangs  with  rapture  over  Shakspeare,  kin- 
dles with  Sidney  and  Milton,  or  prays  in  the  idiom  of  the 
English  Bible,  London  legislates  for  him.  [Cheers. J 
When,  therefore,  Great  Britain  abolished  slavery  in  the 
West  Indies,  she  settled  the  policy  of  every  land  which 
the  Saxon  race  rules  ;  for  all  such,  the  question  is  now 
only  one  of  time.  Every  word,  therefore,  that  our  friend 
has  spoken  for  the  slave  at  home,  instead  of  losing  power 
has  gained  it  from  the  position  he  occupied,  since  he 
was  pouring  the  waters  of  life  into  the  very  fountain- 
head  of  our  literature. 

Neither  have  his  labors  in  behalf  of  other  reforms 
been  so  much  lost  to  the  slave.  The  cause  of  tyrants  is 
one  the  world  over  [cheers],  and  the  cause  of  resistance 
to  tyranny  is  one  also.  [Cheers.]  Whoever,  anywhere, 
loves  truth  and  hates  error,  frowns  on  injustice  and 
holds  out  his  hand  to  the  oppressed,  that  man  helps  the 
slave.  An  Hungarian  triumph  lightens  the  chains  of 
Carolina  ;  and  an  infamous  vote  in  the  United  States 
Senate  adds  darkness  to  the  dungeon  where  German 
patriots  lie  entombed.  [Cheers.]  All  oppressions  under 
the  sun  are  linked  together,  and  each  feels  the  Devil's 
pulse  keep  time  in  it  to  the  life-blood  of  every  other. 
Of  this  brotherhood,  it  matters  not  what  member  you 
assail,  since  — 

"  Whichever  link  you  strike, 
Tenth  or  ten  thousandth,  breaks  the  chain  alike."     [Cheers.] 

The  cause  of  reform,  too,  is  one,  —  "  distinct  like  the 
billows,  but  one  like  the  sea."  It  matters  not,  therefore, 


30  WELCOME   TO   GEORGE    THOMPSON. 

in  what  part  of  the  Lord's  harvest-field  our  friend  has 
been  toiling :  whether  his  voice  cheered  the  starving 
Hindoo  crushed  beneath  British  selfishness,  or  Hungary 
battling  against  treason  and  the  Czar;  whether  he 
pleaded  at  home  for  bread  and  the  ballot,  or  held  up 
with  his  sympathy  the  ever-hopeful  enthusiasm  of  Ire- 
land, —  every  true  word  spoken  for  suffering  man,  is  so 
much  done  for  the  negro  bending  beneath  the  weight  of 
American  bondage.  [Cheers.]  It  is  said  that  the  earth- 
quake of  Lisbon  tossed  the  sea  in  billows  on  the  coast  of 
Cuba ;  so  no  indignant  heart  is  beating  anywhere  whose 
pulses  are  not  felt  on  the  walls  of  our  American  Bastile. 
[Cheers.]  When,  therefore,  we  recount  to  Mr.  Thomp- 
son our  success  and  marvellous  progress,  we  are  but 
returning  to  him  the  talent  he  committed  to  our  trust ; 
not  only  in  that  for  many  of  us  his  eloquence  breathed 
into  our  souls  the  breath  of  Antislavery  life,  but  inas- 
much, also,  as  we  have  been  aware,  with  the  Roman 
consul  whom  the  gods  aided,  that,  at  all  times  and  in  all 
trials,  "  he  rode  at  our  right  hand." 

Our  friend  has  dwelt  long  and  most  impressively  on 
the  objection  brought  against  him,  as  a  foreigner,  for  tak- 
ing sides  on  American  questions.1  Ah,  the  evil  is  not 
that  he  takes  sides  ;  it  is  that  he  takes  the  wrong  side  ! 
[Cheers.]  How  much  better  Father  Mathew  played  his 

1  Mr.  Choate  said  in  his  speech  at  Faneuil  Hall,  "  If  the  philanthro- 
pist wishes  to  say  anything  about  slavery,  let  him  strike  his  blow  in 
Cuba,  let  him  strike  it  below  the  line,  let  him  go  where  the  stars  and 
stripes  do  not  wave  over  it."  Is  there  not  a  story  of  one  who  listening 
to  a  sermon  which  asserted  that  all  the  world  would  be  reformed,  if 
every  man  would  reform  one  sinner,  cried  out,  "  True,  I  '11  go  right  home 
and  reform  my  brother  Bill !  "  and  if  there  be  such  a  story,  is  not  the 
advice  of  the  eloquent  gentleman  flat  plagiarism  ?  Besides,  George 
Thompson  has  come  to  his  Cuba,  come  where  his  "stars  and  stripes 
[The  Union  Jack]  do  not  wave,"  and  yet  the  Choates  of  the  island  do 
not  seem  to  agree  with  their  Boston  relative,  that  this  is  his  "  appropriate 
sphere ! " 


WELCOME   TO   GEORGE   THOMPSON.  31 

cards  !  Mr.  Thompson  comes  here  for  the  benefit  of  his 
health.  In  Italy  invalids  are  always  recommended  to 
secure  the  southerly  side  of  the  house.  Mistaken  man  ! 
how  wild  in  him,  an  invalid,  to  take  so  Northerly  a  view 
of  this  great  question !  [Cheers.]  But  for  this,  like 
the  pliant  Irishman,  he  might  have  moved  in  the  best 
society  !  Could  he  but  have  chanced  to  be  born  in  Ire- 
land, and  have  early  contracted  the  habit  of  kissing  the 
l-  Blarney  Stone  "  of  every  nation,  instead  of  shivering 
here  beneath  that  North  Star,  —  which  South  Carolina, 
it  is  said,  intends  to  forbid  her  pilots  to  steer  by,  it  is  so 
incendiary  a  twinkler  !  [laughter  and  cheers] — in- 
stead of  this,  he  could  "  repose  his  wearied  virtue  "  — 

"Where  the  gentle  south  wind  lingers, 

'Mid  Carolina's  pines ; 
Or  falls  the  careless  sunbeam 
Down  Georgia's  golden  mines." 

I  come  to-night  from  that  little  family  party  of  the 
Curtises,  the  slave-catchers'  meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall, 
and  am  exceedingly  glad  to  be  able  to  inform  you  that 
our  ever-active  [!]  Mayor  has  been  able,  quite  contrary 
to  his  expectations,  to  keep  the  peace  there  to-night. 
[Laughter.]  I  was  much  pleased,  even  in  that  gather- 
ing, to  witness  the  unconscious  effect  of  our  agitation. 
In  the  first  place  it  is  considered  a  settled  thing  that  the 
Union  is  in  danger  !  Nothing  less,  it  seems,  would  have 
induced  Mr.  Choate  and  all  the  Messrs.  Curtises  to  come 
forth  in  its  defence.  Put  that  down  as  one  evidence  of 
success.  It  used  to  be  said  that  characters  which 
needed  defence  were  not  worth  defending.  Perhaps  it 
will  be  found  to  be  the  case  with  laws.  Add  that  to  our 
trophies. 

Mr.  B.  R.  Curtis  —  the  only  one  of  the  speakers  enti- 
tled to  much  influence  or  consideration  —  very  palpably 


32  WELCOME   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON. 

evaded  any  expression  of  opinion  on  the  propriety  or 
necessity  of  the  late  Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  another  homage 
of  vice  to  virtue.  He  also  admitted  the  slave  clause  of 
the  Constitution  to  be  immoral.  His  only  argument  to 
justify  our  fathers  in  admitting  it  was,  they  were  afraid 
to  do  otherwise  ;  feared  poverty,  England,  anarchy,  and 
all  sorts  of  ills.  The  Sultan  might  well  have  pleaded, 
in  the  face  of  Mr.  Webster's  recent  eloquence,  that 
fear  of  dethronement,  anarchy,  Russia,  and  a  thousand 
ills,  justified  him  in  surrendering  Kossuth.  Would 
the  world,  would  humanity,  would  even  Mr.  Webster, 
have  said  Amen  to  such  a  plea  from  his  mouth  ?  There 
may  be  times  when  States  should  say  with  the  great 
Roman,  "  It  is  necessary  to  go  ;  it  is  not  necessary  to 
live!"  Perhaps  Mr.  Curtis  may  yet  find  this  to  be  one 
of  those  occasions.  One  tiling  we  know,  the  great  sena- 
tor told  the  Sultan  that  if  Kossuth  were  given  up,  he 
could  not  tell  how  or  when,  but  verily,  Turkey  would 
somehow  have  to  "  look  out  for  the  consequences."  "  I 
thank  thee,  Jew,  for  teaching  me  that  word."  Once  on 
a  time  Emperor  Georgia  sent  after  our  William  and 
Ellen  Kossuth  ;  the  Webster  Whigs  argued  for  their  sur- 
render ;  and  Heaven  has  graciously  permitted  us  to  live 
and  see  both  how  and  when  they  had  to  "  look  out  for 
the  consequences."  [Laughter  and  cheers.] 

Mr.  Curtis  defended  the  right  of  Massachusetts  to 
surrender  the  fugitive  slave,  on  the  ground  that  every 
sovereign  State  had  authority  to  exclude  foreigners  from 
its  soil.  "  Exclude  foreigners  from  the  soil  "  !  How 
delicate  a  phrase  !  What  a  "  commodity  of  good  names  " 
this  trouble  of  ours  has  coined  !  "  Service  and  labor  " 
was  the  Constitutional  veil  to  hide  the  ugly  face  of 
slavery.  Then,  "  Peculiar  Institution  "  !  "  Patriarchal 
Institution  "  ! !  "  Domestic  Institution  "  ! ! !  And  now, 
"  excluding  foreigners  from  our  soil  "  !  ! !  !  "  Truly,  the 


WELCOME   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON.  33 

epithets,  Master  Ilolof ernes,  are  sweetly  varied ! "  Throw 
in  this  trifle  also,  as  deference  to  a  sentiment  which 
dares  to  do  that  which  it  dislikes  to  hear  named.  But 
let  us,  meantime,  be  careful  to  use  all  plainness  of 
speech  —  to  call  things  rigorously  by  their  right  names. 
Whoever  professes  his  readiness  to  obey  this  bill,  call 
him  "  slave-catcher ; "  let  the  title  he  chooses  stick 
to  him.  Heed  no  cry  of  "  harsh  language."  Yield  not 
to  any  tenderness  of  nerves  more  sensitive  than  the 
(Conscience  thej^cover  ;  remember,  — 

"  There  is  more  force  in  names 
Than  most  men  dream  of;  and  a  lie  may  keep 
Its  throne  a  whole  age  longer,  if  it  skulk 
Behind  the  shield  of  some  iair-seerning  name." 

Mr.  Curtis  forgot  to  finish  his  argument,  and  show  us 
how,  in  present  circumstances,  it  is  moral  in  us  to  exercise 
this  legal  right.  I  may  have,  by  law,  the  right  to  ex- 
clude the  world  from  my  house  ;  but  surely  there  are 
circumstances,  as  in  the  case  of  a  man  dying  on  my 
threshold,  where  it  would  be  gross  inhumanity,  utter  sin 
before  God,  to  exercise  that  right.  Surely,  the  slave's 
claim  on  us  is  equal.  How  exactly  level  to  the  world's 
worst  idea  of  a  Yankee,  this  pocket  argument  that  the 
Commonwealth  would  suffer  by  yielding  to  its  noblest 
instincts;  that  Massachusetts  cannot  now  afford  to  be 
humane,  to  open  her  arms,  a  refuge,  in  the  words  of  her 
own  statute  of  1642,  for  all  who  "fly  to  her  from  the 
tyranny  and  oppression  of  their  persecutors  /"  In  1850, 
our  poor,  old,  heavy-laden  mother  must  leave  that  lux- 
ury to  Turks  and  other  uncalculatincj  barbarians  !  We 
Christians  "  must  take  thought  for  the  morrow,"  and 
count  justice,  humanity,  and  all  that,  mere  fine  words  ! 

But  is  the  slave  a  foreigner  ?  Not,  surely,  when  we 
pledge  our  whole  physical  force  to  his  master  to  keep 


34  WELCOME   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON. 

him  in  chains  !  Were  the  surrender  clause  the  only 
clause  in  our  Constitution  relating  to  slaves,  Mr.  Curtis's 
argument  would  have  some  shadow  of  claim  to  plausibil- 
ity. But  Massachusetts  has  pledged  her  whole  strength 
to  the  slave's  injury.  She,  as  a  member  of  this  Union, 
promises  the  slave-holder  to  keep  peace  on  the  planta- 
tion ;  and  if  the  slave  rises  to  get  his  liberty,  she  will, 
as  Edward  Everett  once  offered,  "  buckle  on  her  knap- 
sack ''  to  put  him  down.  It  is  not  for  her  now  to  turn 
round  and  treat  him  like  a  foreigner  in  whose  wrong 
or  welfare  she  has  had  no  share.  The  slave  may  well 
cry  to  her,  "  Treat  me  always  like  a  foreigner ;  cease  to 
enable  my  oppressor,  by  your  aid,  to  keep  me  in  chains ; 
take  your  heel  off  my  neck ;  and  then  I  will  not  only 
not  ask  a  place  on  your  soil,  but  soon  I  will  raise  free 
arms  to  God,  and  thank  him,  not  for  Massachusetts' 
mercv,  but  for  Massachusetts'  justice  and  consistency." 

But,  granting  the  whole  of  Mr.  Curtis's  argument,  he 
did  not  touch,  or  even  glance  at,  the  popular  objection 
to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  which  is  not  that  fugitive 
slaves  are  to  be  given  up  according  to  its  provisions,  hut 
that  its  right  name  is,  "  A  Bill  for  the  more  safe  and 
speedy  kidnapping  of  free  colored  people."  The  law- 
abiding  citizens  whom  he  addressed,  complain  that  while 
every  man  found  on  Massachusetts  soil  has  a  right,  until 
the  contrary  is  shown,  to  be  considered  a  free  man,  this 
bill  recognizes  the  right,  not  in  the  remotest  manner 
alluded  to  in  the  Constitution,  of  certain  other  persons  to 
arrest  and  transport  him  elsewhere,  without  judge,  war- 
rant, process,  or  reason  rendered  to  anybody  ;  and  even 
in  cases  of  resistance  to  this,  allows  such  a  man  to  be 
carried  hence  on  ex  parte  evidence,  of  whose  manufac- 
ture he  had  no  notice,  gotten  up  nobody  knows  where 
and  by  whom  nobody  has  authority  to  inquire  !  And 
that  we  are  called  to  put  implicit  confidence  in  the  pecu- 


WELCOME   TO    GEORGE    THOMPSON.  35 

liarly  conscientious  and  striking  reluctance  of  slave- 
holders to  trespass  on  the  rights  of  others,  that  this 
loose  law,  this  wide-open  gate  for  avarice  and  perjury, 
shall  never  be  abused  !  And,  further  still,  we  are  told 
not  to  be  anxious  about  the  checks  and  safeguards  of 
jury  trial  ;  since,  when  such  unfortunates  reach  Charles- 
ton or  New  Orleans, — and,  by  the  way,  what  bond  is 
taken  that  they  ever  shall,  and  not  be  carried  to  Cuba  or 
Brazil  first?  —  they,  the  mistakenly  kidnapped  citizens 
of  the  Commonwealth,  shall  have  all  the  blessed  privi- 
leges of  a  jury  trial  that  the  slaves  of  that  paradise 
enjoy  !  We  ask  bread,  —  a  freeman's  jury  trial  (a  matter 
of  right,  not  of  favor),  by  his  peers  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, with  a  witness-box  open  to  all  men,  white  or 
black,  and  the  burden  of  proof  on  the  claimant  to  show 
his  title.  Our  statesmen  (!)  offer  us  a  stone,  —  the  slave's 
jury  trial  (not  a  matter  of  right,  but  granted  when  he 
finds  some  one  willing  to  run  the  risk  of  paying  single, 
perhaps  double,  costs,  and  in  some  States,  only  if  the 
Court  pleases,  even  then),  subject  to  lashes  if  the  suit 
be  held  groundless,  the  jury-box  filled  probably  with 
slave-holders,  a  witness-box  closed  against  all  men  of 
his  own  race,  and  the  burden  of  proof  on  him  to 
show  that  the  claimant  does  not  own  him  according  to 
Southern  law !  Verily,  gentlemen,  our  unprofessional 
eyes  can  see,  or  think  they  see,  a  difference  worth 
"  discussing  "  ! 

Mr.  Clay  says,  in  his  letter  to  the  Philadelphia  Union 
Meeting,  that  the  question  now  is,  "  Whether  this  agita- 
tion against  slavery  shall  put  down  the  Union,  or  the 
Union  be  preserved,  and  that  agitation  be  put  down. 
There  is  no  other  alternative."  What  does  he  mean  by 
"  agitation  "  ?  He  means  meetings  like  this,  of  men  and 
women  gathered  together  to  do  honor  to  an  honest  man, 
to  encourage  each  other  in  resisting  infamous  and  cruel 


36  WELCOME   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON. 

laws,  and  to  join  in  ridding  the  land  of  the  fetter  and 
the  chain.  Yes;  it  is  the  fetter  and  the  chain,  the  un- 
speakable blessings  of  slavery,  for  whose  sake  reason  is 
to  be  hoodwinked,  and  eloquence  to  be  gagged !  The 
fetter  and  the  chain,  which,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
ocean,  trade  has  worn  away  by  the  beneficent  action  of 
her  waters,  or  Christianity  melted  in  the  fervor  of  her 
indignant  rebuke !  These,  in  Mr.  Clay's  opinion,  it  is 
our  appropriate  work  to  forge  anew  !  We  have  not  so 
read  the  scroll  of  our  country's  destiny.  To  the  anointed 
eye,  the  planting  of  this  continent  is  the  exodus  of  the 
race  out  of  the  bondage  of  old  and  corrupt  institutions. 
The  serene  and  beautiful  spirit  that  leads  it,  laughs  with 
pitying  scorn  at  the  efforts  of  the  mightiest  Pharaoh  to 
stay  this  constant  and  gradual  advance  of  humanity. 
Every  blow  falls  on  the  head  of  the  assailants,  —  they 
consume  nothing  but  themselves. 

Put  the  Union  into  one  scale  and  free  speech  into  the 
other ;  it  needs  no  ghost  to  tell  which  will  kick  the 
beam.  It  was  the  love  of  free  thought  and  free  speech, 
burning  in  this  same  Saxon  blood  of  ours,  that,  two  hun- 
dred years  ago,  translated  the  Bible  out  of  dead  tongues 
into  living  speech.  That  work  cost  the  upsetting  of  one 
or  two  kingdoms,  and  the  downfall  of  a  great  church. 
Here  and  now  the  same  love  of  freedom  and  the  same 
Saxon  blood  are  engaged  in  translating  liberty  out  of 
dead  professions  into  living  practice.  It  will  be  no  mat- 
ter of  surprise,  if  so  great  a  work  cost  a  Union  or  two ; 
but  what  is  that  to  us  ?  See  thou,  creature  of  Union, 
knowing  no  "  higher  law  "  than  the  parchment  of  1789, 
to  that! 

No  man  of  full  age  and  sound  mind  really  believes 
that  any  thing  can  be  maintained  in  this  country  which 
requires  for  its  existence  the  stifling  of  free  discussion. 
This  Yankee  right  to  ask  all  sorts  of  questions,  on  all 


WELCOME   TO    GEORGE   THOMPSON.  37 

sorts  of  subjects,  of  all  sorts  of  persons,  is  no  accidental 
matter,  —  it  is  part  of  the  organic  structure  of  the  Yan- 
kee constitution.  Freedom  in  thought  and  word  is  the 
genius  of  our  language,  the  soul  of  our  literature,  the 
undertone  of  all  our  history,  the  groundwork  of  our 
habits.  It  gives  the  form  to  our  faith,  since  Saxons  are 
plainly  Protestants  by  nature.  It  is  only  to  secure  this 
that  the  uneasy  race  submits  to  the  necessary  evil  of  law 
and  government,  habeas  corpus  and  jury  trial;  that  a 
comma  in  the  wrong  place  shall  save  even  a  murderer's 
neck ;  that  the  State  shall  take  no  cent  till  it  has  been 
seven  times  voted,  —  these  are  the  gilding  and  sugar  that 
soothe  the  restive  child  into  being  ruled  at  all.  Our 
liberty  is  no  superficial  structure  like  the  Capitol  at 
Washington,  which  man  put  up  and  man  can  pull  down 
again.  It  is  an  oak,  striking  its  roots  through  the  strata 
of  a  thousand  customs  ;  to  uproot  it  would  shake  the 
continent.  It  is  the  granite  of  the  New  England  for- 
mation, basing  itself  in  the  central  depths,  peering  to 
heaven  through  the  tops  of  our  mountains,  and  bearing 
on  its  ample  sides  the  laughing  prosperity  of  the  land. 
The  wind  of  the  blow  that  shall  be  aimed  at  free  speech 
will  strike  the  Union  to  the  dust.  Let  us  always  rejoice 
when  the  frenzy  of  our  opponents  leads  them  to  wed  the 
cause  of  the  slave  with  the  cause  of  free  speech.  Union 
meetings  and  loud  cheers  may  stand  for  the  "  Dearly 
Beloved  "  with  which  the  old  English  ceremony  of  mar- 
riage began  ;  but  the  result,  like  the  last  word  of  that 
prayer-book  formula,  will  verily  be,  "  amazement."  Woe 
to  the  statesman  who  waves  his  bit  of  red  cloth  in  the 
face  of  that  mad  bull,  a  full-blooded  Saxon  roused  to  the 
suspicion,  however  unfounded,  that  somebody  is  plotting 
to  prevent  his  tongue  from  wagging  as  it  lists ! 

It  was  the  weight  of  the  hand  of  Charles  I.  on  English 
tongues  —  the  attempted  arrest  of  the  five  members  — 


38  WELCOME   TO   GEORGE   THOMPSON. 

that  settled  the  question  whether  he  should  sit  upon  a 
throne  or  stand  upon  a  scaffold.  It  was  the  Alien  and 
Sedition  Acts  —  provisions  against  foreigners,  and  for- 
bidding to  "  print,  publish,  and  utter  anything  to  bring 
government  and  laws  into  disrepute  "  —  that  contributed 
so  much  to  send  the  Federal  party  to  the  tomb  of  the 
Capulets.  When  old  men,  and  men  high  in  the  land's 
confidence,  like  those  who  meet  in  Philadelphia,  New 
York,  and  at  Faneuil  Hall  to-night,  talk  with  such 
thoughtless  impudence,  of  "  putting  down  discussion," 
remember  that  whom  God  would  destroy,  he  first  makes 
mad.  Were  it  not  so,  Mr.  Choate  would  be  the  first  man 
to  laugh  at  the  spectacle  of  himself,  a  very  respectable 
lawyer  and  somewhat  eloquent  declaimer  of  the  Suffolk 
bar,  coolly  asserting  with  a  threatening  brow,  meant  to 
be  like  that  of  Jove,  to  the  swarming  millions  of  the 
free  States,  that  "  this  discussion  must  stop !  "  To  such 
nonsense,  whether  from  him,  or  the  angry  lips  of  his 
wire-puller  in  front  of  the  Revere  House,  the  only 
fitting  answer  is  Sam  Weller's  repetition  to  Pickwick, 
"It  can't  be  done."  [Cheers  and  laughter.]  The  like 
was  never  attempted  but  once  before,  when  Xerxes  flung 
chains  at  the  Hellespont  — 

"  And  o'er  that  foolish  deed  has  pealed 
The  long  laugh  of  a  world  !  " 

Oh,  no  !  this  chasm  in  the  forum  all  the  Clay  in  the  land 
cannot  fill.  [Cheers.]  This  rent  in  the  mantle  all  the 
Websters  in  the  mill  cannot  weave  up.  [Cheers.]  Per- 
petuate slavery  amid  such  a  race  as  ours  !  Impossible  ! 
Re-annex  the  rest  of  the  continent,  if  you  will  ;  pile 
fugitive  slave  bills  till  they  rival  the  Andes ;  dissolve, 
were  it  possible,  the  union  God  has  made  between  well- 
doing and  well-being,  —  even  then  you  could  not  keep 
slavery  in  peace  till  you  got  a  new  race  to  people  these 


WELCOME    TO    GEORGE    THOMPSON.  39 

shores.  The  blood  which  has  cleared  the  forest,  tor- 
tured the  earth  of  its  secrets,  made  the  ocean  its  vassal, 
and  subjected  every  other  race  it  has  met,  will  never 
volunteer  its  own  industry  to  forge  gags  for  its  own  lips. 
You,  therefore,  who  look  forward  to  slavery  and  peace, 
make  ready  to  sweep  clean  the  continent,  and  see  that 
Webster,  Foot,  and  Dickinson  be  the  Shem,  Ham,  and 
Japhet  of  the  Ark  you  shall  prepare.  [Cheers.]  The 
Carpathian  Mountains  may  serve  to  shelter  tyrants ;  the 
slope  of  Germany  may  bear  up  a  race  more  familiar  with 
the  Greek  text  than  the  Greek  phalanx ;  the  wave  of 
Russian  rule  may  sweep  so  far  westward,  for  aught  I 
know,  as  to  fill  with  miniature  tyrants  again  the  robber 
castles  of  the  Rhine,  —  but  this  I  do  know :  God  has 
piled  our  Rocky  Mountains  as  ramparts  for  freedom ; 
He  has  scooped  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  as  the 
cradle  of  free  States,  and  poured  Niagara  as  the  anthem 
of  free  men.  [Loud  cheers.] 


KOSSUTH. 


v 

Speech  delivered  at  the  Antislavery  Bazaar,  Saturday  evening, 
December  27,  1851. 

I  HAVE  been  requested  to  consider  this  evening,  the 
position  which  Kossuth  occupies  in  relation  to  the 
Antislavery  cause  in  America.  I  need  not  say  to  those 
who  have  traced  the  course  of  this  illustrious  man,  that 
it  must  be  with  the  profoundest  regret  that  any  one  who 
loves  liberty  can  utter  the  first  word  of  criticism  in  re- 
gard to  him.  His  life  has  been,  up  to  the  time  of  his  land- 
ing on  our  shores,  one  continued  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of 
his  country's  independence.  He  has  never  forgotten  her. 
He  gave  her  the  bloom  of  his  youth.  He  has  given  her 
the  first  fruits  of  his  genius.  He  has  been  true  to  her 
amid  the  temptations  of  ambitious  life.  He  has  been 
her  martyr  in  the  horrible  dungeons  of  the  despots  of 
Europe.  He  stood  by  her  equally  under  temptations  of 
success.  His  name  has  become  synonymous  with  pa- 
triotism and  devotion  to  the  rights  of  his  race.  He 
came  to  us  heralded  by  the  sympathies  of  every  one  who 
had  a  heart  either  for  the  sufferers  by  the  oppressions  of 
Europe,  or  for  those  who  lie  under  the  weight  of  the  far 
greater  oppressions  of  our  own  country.  Not  only  this, 
but  he  came  to  us  indebted  to  the  government  of  the 
United  States.  Words  of  gratitude  from  his  lips  were 
both  natural  and  fitting.  He  could  not  do  otherwise 
than  be  grateful.  He  had  a  right  to  pour  out,  with 


KOSSUTH.  41 

Oriental  profuseness,  the  overflowing  thanks  of  one  who 
had  been  rescued  from  the  heavy  yoke  of  Russia,  and 
allowed  to  plead  his  cause  face  to  face  with  the  millions 
of  the  west  of  Europe,  and  of  our  own  land.  It  was 
something  to  be  thankful  for.  No  one  can  find  fault 
with  him  for  any  grateful  words  which  he  has  uttered, 
on  touching  the  land  under  whose  flag  he  first  raised  his 
head,  no  longer  a  prisoner,  hardly  an  exile.  He  might 
well,  as  in  classic  story,  have  fallen  down  and  kissed  the 
deck  of  that  national  frigate  which  was  to  be  his  ros- 
trum, with  the  world  for  an  audience.  You  will  not  un- 
derstand me,  therefore,  as  endeavoring  to  disparage  the 
momentous  service  which  he  has  rendered  to  the  Sla- 
vonic races  of  Europe,  the  purity  of  his  purpose,  his 
gallant  daring,  the  energy  which  he  has  displayed,  — 
no,  nor  to  find  fault  with  the  gratitude  which  he  has 
expressed  to  America.  All  this  it  was  his  duty  to  do. 
But  there  was  something  more  expected  of  him.  That 
expectation  has  been  disappointed.  I  shall  not  attempt, 
for  it  is  not  in  the  mood  either  of  the  speaker  or  of  any 
one  who  listens  to  him,  to  indulge  in  any  epithets 
which  shall  characterize  his  course.  I  want  to  state  a 
few  simple  principles,  and  then  a  few  pregnant  facts, 
and  ask  you  whether  the  Abolitionists  of  this  coun- 
try have  not  a  fair  charge  to  make  against  the  great 
Hungarian ;  whether  those  men  who  wait  always  with 
patient  expectation  the  coming  of  those  great  and  noble 
spirits  who  are  to  drag  forward  the  cause  of  human 
progress,  at  least  a  hand's  breadth,  have  not  a  right  to 
be  disappointed,  and  withdraw  themselves  from  the 
crowd  of  idolaters  around  him  who  has  been  designated 
as  the  man  of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  the  van  leader 
of  the  reform  spirit  of  the  age,  as  one  whose  boundless 
capacity,  purity  of  purpose,  and  the  universality  of  whose 
sympathies,  almost  merited  that  we  should  take  the 


-42 


KOSSUTH. 


statue  of  Washington  from  its  pedestal,  and  replace  it 
with  the  form  of  the  great  Hungarian. 

This,  then,  is  my  purpose,  —  to  look  at  Kossuth  as  the 
slave  would  look  at  him.  Let  me  preface  what  I  have 
to  say  with  a  single  remark  about  America.  You  will 
recollect  the  old  story  of  the  African  chief,  seated  naked 
under  his  palm-tree  to  receive  the  captain  of  an  English 
frigate,  and  the  first  question  he  asked  was,  "  What  do 
they  say  of  me  in  England  ? "  We  laugh  at  this  van- 
ity of  a  naked  savage,  canopied  by  a  palm-tree,  on  an 
unknown  river  somewhere  in  the  desert  of  a  barbarous 
continent ;  but  the  same  spirit  pervades  our  twenty 
millions  of  Americans.  The  heart  of  every  man  is  con- 
stantly asking  the  question,  "  What  do  they  say  of  us 
in  England  ?  "  Europe  is  the  great  tribunal  for  whose 
decision  American  sensitiveness  always  stands  waiting  in 
awe.  We  declared  our  independence,  in  '76,  of  the 
British  Crown,  but  we  are  vassals,  to-day,  of  British 
opinion.  So  far  as  concerns  American  literature  or 
American  thought,  the  sceptre  has  never  departed  from 
Judah  ;  it  dwells  yet  with  the  elder  branch  on  the  other 
side  of  the  water.  The  American  still  looks  with  too 
servile  admiration  to  the  institutions  which  his  fathers 
reluctantly  quitted,  and  which  he  still  regards  with 
overmuch  fondness.  Our  literature  is  but  a  pale  reflec- 
tion of  the  English  mind  ;  and  one  reason  why  we  have 
never  become  more  thoroughly  democratic  is  because, 
while  our  institutions  have  been  so  in  form,  the  whole 
literature  upon  which  we  lived  was  impregnated  with 
English  ideas,  and  every  student  and  every  thinker 
breathed  the  atmosphere  of  London.  London  is  yet  the 
great  fount  of  ideas  for  all  the  Saxon  race.  Not  until  the 
principles  of  democracy  shall  enter  Temple  Bar,  will 
the  Saxon  race  be  fully  democratic,  whether  planted  on 
the  steppes  of  the  Cordilleras  or  on  the  shores  of  the 


KOSSUTH.  43 

Pacific.     What  is  thus  true  of  England,  is  true  in  a  less 
degree  of  the  rest  of  Europe. 

Now,  it  is  to  such  a  nation  as  this  that  Kossuth  comes, 
—  a  nation  sensitive  to  a  fault,  servile  to  the  last  degree  ; 
catching,  with  a  watchful  interest,  the  first  breath  of 
foreign  criticism  ;  hugging  to  its  bosom  with  delight 
any  eulogy  that  falls  from  the  lips  of  noted  men  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water.  Is  there  anything  peculiar  and 
to  be  remarked  in  the  state  of  public  affairs  at  the  time  of 
his  visit  ?  Yes  ;  he  comes  precisely  at  the  moment  when 
one  absorbing  question  has  banished  all  others  from  the 
nation's  mind.  The  great  classes  and  interests  of  society 
crash  and  jostle  against  each  other  like  mighty  vessels 
in  a  storm.  The  slave  question  having,  like  Aaron's 
rod,  devoured  all  other  political  issues,  claims  and  keeps 
the  undivided  attention  of  excited  millions.  The  lips  of 
every  public  man  are  anxiously  watched,  and  his  lightest 
word  scanned  with  relentless  scrutiny.  Pulpit  and 
forum  are  both  busy  in  the  discussion  of  the  profoundest 
questions  as  to  the  relations  of  the  citizen  to  the  law, 
and  the  real  value  and  strength  of  our  institutions.  For 
the  first  time,  some  men  have  begun  to  doubt  whether 
they  are  compatible  with  free  speech  and  Christianity  ; 
while  men,  called  statesmen,  either  emboldened  by  suc- 
cess, or  hardened  by  desperate  ambition,  have  been 
found  ready  openly  to  declare  that  the  Union  is  possible 
only  on  condition  that  the  sons  of  the  Pilgrims  consent 
to  hunt  the  slaves,  and  smother  those  instincts  which 
have  made  the  poets  of  all  ages  love  to  linger  round  the 
dungeon  of  the  patriot  and  the  stake  of  the  martyr,  — 
with  Tell  and  Wallace,  with  Lafayette  and  Silvio  Pel- 
lico,  with  Charles  Stuart  hunted  by  the  soldiery  of 
Cromwell,  and  the  Covenanter  shot  by  that  same  Charles 
Stuart  at  his  cottage  door. 

Kossuth  lands  on  a  shore  where  humanity  is  illegal, 


44  KOSSUTH. 

and  obedience  to  the  Golden  Rule  of  Christianity  has 
just  been  declared  treason.  He  was  not  ignorant  of 
this  state  of  things.  Private  individuals  and  public 
societies  in  England  had  placed  in  his  hands  ample 
evidence  of  the  real  character  of  American  institutions, 
and  the  critical  state  of  public  opinion  on  the  momen- 
tous question  of  enslaving  every  sixth  man,  woman, 
and  child  in  the  land.  Some  besought  him  to  pause 
ere  he  set  foot  on  a  land  cursed  with  such  a  mon- 
strous system  of  oppression,  and  all  bade  him  beware 
of  the  temptation  to  which  his  position  subjected  him, 
of  strengthening  by  his  silence  or  approbation  the 
hands  of  the  oppressor.  At  such  a  time,  and  in  the 
midst  of  such  a  people,  we  have  a  right  to  claim  that  he 
should  walk  carefully.  He  knew  that  he  must  throw 
the  weight  of  his  mighty  name  in  the  scale  of  one  party 
or  another  that  was  waging  war  for  principle  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  Senator  Foofe  spoke  truly  when  he 
said,  from  his  seat  in  the  Senate  chamber,  "  There  is  a 
great  struggle  going  on  through  the  world.  It  is  be- 
tween despotism  and  liberty.  There  is  no  neutrality  in 
this  struggle.  No  man  can  fail  to  be  on  one  side  or  the 
other.  He  that  is  not  with  us  is  against  us."  To  which 
John  P.  Hale  replied  with  such  readiness,  "  Exactly.'* 
We  have  now  that  condition  of  affairs  which  George 
Canning  prophesied  when  he  said,  "  The  next  war  that 
passes  over  Europe  is  to  be  a  war  of  ideas."  Now, 
wherever  there  is  the  war  of  ideas,  every  tongue  takes  a 
side.  There  is  no  neutrality.  Even  silence  is  not  neu- 
trality ;  but  he  who  speaks  a  word  of  sympathy  to  his 
brother-man  is  on  the  side  of  humanity  and  progress. 
[Loud  cheers.] 

Now  I  have  brought  three  facts  before  you.  A  man 
whose  simple  name  is  an  argument,  whose  opinion  is  a 
fact  potent  throughout  the  world  in  sustaining  institu- 


KOSSUTH.  45 

tions  of  government,  —  I  have  placed  him  in  the  midst  of 
a  people  with  every  eye  fixed  upon  him  to  note  his 
coarse  and  learn  his  opinion :  I  have  shown  that  he  is 
not  ignorant  of  this  his  critical  position.  What  has  he 
done  ?  No  man  expected  that  he  should  come  into  this 
hall ;  that  he  should  go  into  Antislavery  meetings  ;  that 
he  should  take  ground  against  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill. 
No.  But  you  remember  when  Alexander  went  to  see 
Diogenes,  and  asked  what  he  could  do  for  him,  the  reply 
of  the  cynic  was,  "  Stand  out  of  my  light !  "  Now  the 
slave  had  at  least  the  right  to  say  to  Kossuth,  "  Stand 
out  of  my  light !  "  Let  the  glowing  sun  of  the  human- 
ity of  the  nineteenth  century  strike  full  upon  me.  Let 
the  light  and  heat  of  those  generous  ideas  with  which 
God  has  inspired  some  of  the  white  race,  fall  upon  me, 
to  melt  these  chains  of  mine  ;  and  let  not  your  lavish 
praise  be  the  spell  that  shall  lull  to  sleep  the  half-awak- 
ened conscience  of  a  people  who  have  just  begun  to  at- 
tend to  the  neglected,  and  to  remember  the  forgotten. 
Throw  not  the  weight  of  your  great  name  into  the  scale 
of  those,  my  enemies,  who  glory  in  a  national  prosper- 
ity fed  out  of  my  veins,  and  worship  a  Union  cemented 
with  my  blood. 

Take  his  speeches.  Do  they  differ  from  those  of  the 
most  pro-slavery  American  ?  Does  he  qualify  his  eulogy, 
does  he  limit  his  praise  ?  Has  he  a  word  of  sympathy 
for  the  oppressed,  —  a  hint,  even,  at  any  blot  on  our  na- 
tional escutcheon  ?  Could  he  have  spoken  without  tak- 
ing a  side,  unless  he  had  used  the  most  guarded  and 
qualified  language  ?  Take  his  speeches  relating  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Place  them  side  by 
side  with  the  speeches  of  Daniel  Webster  and  Rufus 
Choate,  with  those  of  any  of  the  men  recognized  as  sup- 
porters of  this  Union  for  its  very  quality  of  being  an 
added  ligament  to  hold  the  slave  to  his  master.  Is  not 


46  KOSSUTH. 

the  tone  the  same  ?  Is  not  the  eulogy  of  our  Constitu- 
tion as  unqualified  and  as  glowing  ?  Do  you  ever  find 
the  slightest  allusion  to  the  fact  that  one-sixth  part  of 
the  inhabitants  under  it  are  denied  those  personal  rights 
which  make  the  sufferings  of  the  Magyar  peasant  tame 
in  comparison  Throughout  this  flood  of  sublime  elo- 
quence which  he  has  poured  forth  with  such  lavish  genius 
to  applauding  crowds,  when  has  he  been  heard  to  speak 
a  word  for  three  millions  of  people  in  this  land,  outraged 
and  trampled  under  foot,  to  intimate  that  he  sympathized 
with  them,  to  hint  that  he  knew  of  their  existence  ? 
Our  country  is  "  great,  glorious,  and  free  ;  the  land  of 
protection  for  the  persecuted  sons  of  freedom  among  the 
great  brotherhood  of  nations."  This  is  his  language. 

As  I  am  speaking  of  one  so  much  praised  and  trusted, 
let  me  read  to  you  two  or  three  lines,  to  show  the  tone 
in  which  he  speaks  of  the  Union  whose  President  and 
courts  have  been  occupied  more  fully,  the  last  twelve 
months,  with  the  recapture  of  fugitive  slaves,  and  with 
the  trial  of  men  who  had  nobly  aided  them,  than  with 
any  other  cases  whatever, —  a  Union  of  which  Daniel 
Webster  says  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill  is  the  very  bond 
and  corner-stone,  that  it  cannot  exist  without  it ;  a 
Union  pledged  to  pursue  and  recapture  every  man  who 
has  the  heroism  to  escape  from  Southern  bondage. 
"  Oppressed  men  will  look  to  your  memory  as  a  token  of 
God  that  there  is  hope  for  freedom  on  earth,"  — this  of 
a  Union  that  returned  Sims  and  Long  to  their  chains, 
and  by  which  fugitives  have  been  returned  by  dozens 
from  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania! — "because  there  is  a 
people  like  you  to  feel  its  worth  and  support  its  cause. 
Europe  has  many  things  to  learn  from  America.  It  has 
to  learn  the  value  of  free  institutions,  and  the  expansive 
power  of  freedom."  And  this  is  a  fair  type  of  his  gen- 
eral language.  You  know  it. 


KOSSUTH.  47 

We  have  just  closed  a  war  for  the  perpetuity  of  slav- 
ery (every  man,  North  or  South,  acknowledges  it),— 
a  war  which  even  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  pro- 
nounced wicked  and  unnecessary  ;  which  the  noblest  in- 
tellects of  the  land  have  reprobated  ;  which  all  parties 
have  justified  on  the  ground  of  its  necessity  to  preserve 
the  Union  by  aiding  slavery,  and  not  on  the  ground  of 
justice,  of  humanity,  or  of  liberty.  What  does  he  say  of 
it  ?  "  Take,  for  instance,  the  glorious,"  —  we  sent  out 
a  party  from  a  slave  State  across  to  Mexican  territories : 
we,  Protestants,  set  up  slavery  on  the  soil  which  Cath- 
olics had  purged  from  the  stain,  —  "  Take,  for  instance, 
the  glorious  struggle  you  had  not  long  ago  with  Mexico, 
in  which  General  Scott  drove  the  President  of  that 
Republic  from  his  capital."  Mark  you  that  language  ! 
I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  it  again. 

"  I  know  how  to  read  your  people's  heart.  It  is  so 
easy  to  read  it,  because  it  is  open  like  Nature,  and  un- 
polluted (!)  like  a  virgin's  heart  (!  !).  Many  others 
shut  their  ears  to  the  cry  of  oppressed  humanity, 
because  they  regard  duties  but  through  the  glass  of 
petty  interests.  Your  people  has  that  instinct  of  justice 
and  generosity  (!)  which  is  the  stamp  of  mankind's 
heavenly  origin  ;  and  it  is  conscious  of  your  country's 
power  ;  it  is  jealous  of  its  own  dignity  ;  it  knows  that  it 
has  the  power  to  restore  the  law  of  nations  to  the 
principles  of  justice  arid  right ;  and  knowing  itself 
to  have  the  power,  it  is  willing  to  be  as  good  as  it  is 
powerful." 

These  are  the  twenty  millions  of  people  whom  George 
Thompson,  with  such  striking  truth,  has  described  as 
engaged  in  one  great  slave  hunt,  with  their  President  at 
their  head,  pursuing  a  poor,  trembling  fugitive,  flying  for 
refuge  to  the  flag  of  Great  Britain,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  lakes.  "  Your  people  have  that  instinct  of  justice 


48  KOSSUTH. 

and  generosity  which  is  the  stamp  of  mankind's  heavenly 
origin"  (!!!). 

"  May  your  kind  anticipations  of  me  be  not  disap- 
pointed !  I  am  but  a  plain  man.  I  have  nothing  in  me 
but  honest  fidelity  to  those  principles  which  have  made 
you  great,  and  my  most  ardent  wish  is,  that  my  own 
country  may  be,  if  not  great  as  yours,  at  least  as  free 
and  as  happy,  which  it  will  be  in  the  establishment  of 
the  same  great  principles.  The  sounds  that  I  now  hear 
seem  to  me  the  trumpet  of  resurrection  for  down-trodden 
humanity  throughout  the  world." 

What !  free  as  the  land  where  the  Bible  is  refused  to 
every  sixth  person !  Free  as  the  land  where  it  is  a 
crime  to  teach  every  sixth  person  to  read !  Free  as 
the  land  where,  by  statute,  every  sixth  woman  may  be 
whipped  at  the  public  whipping-post !  Free  as  the  land 
where  the  murderer  of  the  black  man,  if  the  deed  is  per- 
petrated only  in  the  presence  of  blacks,  is  secure  from 
legal  punishment !  Free  as  the  land,  the  banks  of  whose 
Mississippi  were  lit  up  with  the  horrid  sight,  not  seen 
even  in  Europe  for  two  centuries,  of  a  man  torn  from 
the  hands  of  justice  and  burned  in  his  own  blood  by  a 
mob,  of  whom  the  highest  legal  authority  proclaimed, 
afterward,  that  their  act  was  the  act  of  the  people,  and 
above  the  notice  of  the  judiciary  !  Free  as  the  land,  the 
beautiful  surface  of  whose  Ohio  was  polluted  by  the  frag- 
ments of  three  presses,  —  the  emblems  of  free  speech,  — 
and  no  tribunal  has  taken  notice  of  these  deeds  !  Free 
as  the  land,  whose  prairie  has  drunk  in  the  first  Saxon 
blood  shed  for  the  right  of  free  speech  for  a  century  and 
a  half,  —  I  mean  the  blood  of  Lovejoy  !  Free  as  the 
land  where  the  fugitive  dares  not  proclaim  his  name  in 
the  cities  of  New  England,  and  skulks  in  hiding-places 
until  he  can  conceal  himself  on  board  a  vessel,  and  make 
his  way  to  the  kind  shelter  of  Liverpool  and  London  ! 


KOSSUTH.  49 

Free  as  the  land  where  a  hero  worthy  to  stand  by  the 
side  of  Louis  Kossuth  —  I  mean  Ellen  Crafts  [great 
cheering]  —  has  pistols  lying  by  her  bedside  for  weeks, 
as  protection  against  your  marshals  and  your  sheriffs, 
your  chief-justices  and  divines,  and  finds  no  safe  refuge 
until  she  finds  it  in  the  tender  mercies  of  the  wife  of 
that  poet  who  did  his  service  to  the  cause  of  freedom  at 
Missolonghi  ! 

But  what  does  Kossuth  wish  for  Hungary  ?  "My  most 
ardent  wish  is,  that  my  own  country  may  be,  if  not  as 
great  as  yours,  at  least  as  free  and  as  happy,  wrhich  it 
will  be  in  the  establishment  of  the  same  great  principles." 
"As  free  and  as  happy"!  Is  that  all  that  the  loving 
son  of  Hungary  can  ask  for  his  native  land  ?  Would  he 
thrust  back  to  serfdom  one-sixth  part  of  her  twelve  mil- 
lions ?  Would  he  not  blush  to  stand  so  near  even  to 
Austria,  who  compels  her  peasantry  to  learn  to  read,  and 
make  the  teaching  of  every  sixth  Hungarian  a  penal  of- 
fence ?  Would  he  legislate  into  existence  a  nation  of 
Haynaus,  and  authorize  them  to  whip  Magyar  women  ? 
Would  he  fill  Hungarian  prisons  with  Draytons  and 
Sayres,  with  Torreys  and  Fairbankses  ?  Hungarian 
graves  with  Crandalls  and  Lovcjoys  ?  Would  he  hang 
his  courts  in  chains,  that  his  brother  nobles  might  drag 
back  their  serfs  in  peace  ?  Before  he  repeats  such  a 
wish,  let  him  go  and  meditate  one  hour  more  in  that 
dungeon  whence  one  of  his  comrades  went  to  his  grave, 
and  the  other  came  out  blind  ;  let  him  send  his  thoughts 
back  again  to  that  refuge  which  the  Sultan  gave  him 
when  he  refused,  at  the  hazard  of  his  Crescent,  to  sur- 
render to  his  neighbor  State  the  Hungarian  Crafts,  Sims, 
Long,  etc.,  who  had  escaped  and  claimed  his  protection. 
He  would,  if  he  be  the  man  the  world  believes  him,  learn 
there  that  he  never  could  consent  to  make  Hungary 
what  these  United  States  are,  and  that  he  begs  aid  for 

4 


50  KOSSUTH. 

his  loved  country  too  dear,  if  he  begs  it  by  words  not 
truthful  from  the  lips  of  Louis  Kossuth. 

"  Happy  art  thou,  free  nation  of  America,  that  thou 
hast  founded  thy  house  upon  the  only  solid  basis  of  a 
nation's  liberty  !  Thou  hast  no  tyrants  among  thee  to 
throw  the  apple  of  Eros  into  thy  Union  !  Thou  hast 
no  tyrants  to  raise  the  fury  of  hatred  in  thy  national 
family  !  "  This  he  says,  when  he  knows  that  the  news- 
papers of  one  half  the  Union  are  full  of  the  records  of 
the  atrocities  perpetrated  by  the  white  man  upon  the 
blacks,  guilty  of  nothing  but  a  skin  not  colored  like 
their  own.  I  defy  Kossuth  to  find  in  any  German  paper, 
at  the  very  fount  of  Austrian  despotism,  such  advertise- 
ments as  daily  fill  our  Southern  presses.  I  defy  him 
to  match  the  crimes  and  wickedness  of  the  press  that 
leagues  with  despotism  in  this  land.  Mothers  sold  with 
their  infants  six  weeks  old,  together  or  apart.  1  defy  him 
to  match  the  advertisements  coming  from  our  Southern 
States,  calling  for  a  man  or  his  head  :  Fifty  dollars 
reward  for  a  man,  dead  or  alive ! 

A  land  with  three  millions  of  slaves,  and  not  a  tyrant ! 
Free  speech  achieved  on  the  floor  of  Congress  only  after 
a  dozen  years  of  struggle,  and  still  a  penal  offence  in 
one  half  the  Union  ;  our  jails  filled  with  men  guilty  only 
of  helping  a  brother-man  to  his  liberty,  —  yet  the  keen 
eyes  of  this  great  soul  can  see  nothing  but  a  "  solid  basis 
of  Liberty " !  Southern  Conventions  to  dissolve  the 
Union ;  the  law  executed  in  Boston  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet ;  riot,  as  the  government  calls  it,  stalking 
through  the  streets  of  Detroit,  Buffalo,  Syracuse,  Boston, 
Christiana,  and  New  York ;  Massachusetts  denied  by 
statute  the  right  to  bring  an  action  in  South  Caro- 
lina ;  Georgia  setting  a  price  on  the  head  of  a  Boston 
printer;  senators  threatening  to  hang  a  brother  sena- 
tor, should  he  set  foot  in  a  Southern  State  ;  the  very 


KOSSUTH.  51 

tenants  of  the  pulpit  silenced,  or  subjected  to  a  coat  of 
tar  and  feathers;  one  State  proposing  to  exclude  the 
commerce  of  another ;  demagogue  statesmen  perambu- 
lating the  country  to  save  the  Union ;  honest  men  ex- 
horted to  stifle  their  consciences,  for  fear  the  Ship  of 
State  should  sink  amid  the  breakers  ;  the  whole  nation 
at  last  waking  to  Jefferson's  conviction,  that  "  we  have 
the  wolf  by  the  ears ;  we  can  neither  hold  him  nor  safely 
let  him  go,"  — yet  this  man,  whose  "  tempest-tossed  life 
lias  somewhat  sharpened  the  eyes  of  his  soul,"  can  see 
only  a  "solid  basis  of  Liberty"!  "  No  tyrant  to  throw 
the  apple  of  Eros  in  the  Union  ; "  "  to  raise  the  fury  of 
hatred  in  thy  national  family  "  !  What  place  has  such 
fulsome  and  baseless  eulogy  on  the  lips  of  a  truthful 
and  honest  man  ? 

I  have  a  great  deal  more  of  the  same  tenor,  but  I 
shall  weary  your  patience.  You  will  not  deny  that  this 
has  been  the  general  tenor  of  his  addresses  in  America. 
"  Now,"  he  says,  "  I  do  it  because  I  love  Hungary  so 
much." 

Well,  then,  he  is  a  patriotic  and  devoted  Hungarian, 
—  grant  him  that !  He  loves  Hungary  so  much  that  his 
charity  stops  at  the  banks  of  the  Danube.  He  is  a  lover 
of  his  mother-land.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  suffer  for 
one's  mother-land ;  but  still,  it  is  a  local  patriotism. 
Even  Webster  loves  the  whites.  It  is  something  to  love 
one's  race,  and  so  much  is  patriotism ;  but  they  claim 
for  Kossuth  that  he  represents  the  highest  ideas  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  We  do  not  dispute  his  title  to  this, 
that  he  has  been  devoted  to  Hungary.  Grant  him  that. 
When  Alexander  had  consecrated  himself  as  a  god,  he 
sent  word  to  the  Lacedemonians  that  he  had  made  him- 
self a  god,  and  they  sent  him  back  word,  "  Be  a  god  ! " 
So  if  men  only  claim  for  Kossuth  that  he  is  ready  to 
do  and  dare  all  for  Hungary,  we  are  willing  to  reply 


52  KOSSUTH. 

with  the  Lacedemonians,  "  Be  to  Hungary  her  Wash- 
ington!" The  time  was  when  even  he  claimed  more, 
when  he  could  proclaim  that  the  cause  of  liberty  was 
one  the  world  over.  That  whoever  struck  a  blow  for 
justice  and  humanity  anywhere,  helped  the  oppressed 
the  wide  world  through ;  while  he  who  gave  comfort  to 
tyrants  was  the  foe  of  all  peoples.  We  felt  that  that 
lightning  which  melted  the  chain  of  the  Hungarian  serf, 
flashed  a  glad  light  into  every  hovel  of  the  Carolinas ; 
and  that  the  blow  which  Garrison  was  striking  on  the 
gates  of  the  American  Bastile,  lent  strength  to  hosts 
that  battled  on  the  banks  of  the  Danube.  So  thought 
Kossuth  once  ;  but  is  it  possible  that  his  conviction  was 
no  manly  faith,  but  only  a  fairy  spell  which  legends  tell 
us  a  running  stream  always  dissolves,  and  that  the 
waves  of  the  Atlantic  have  washed  it  out,  and  flung  him 
upon  our  shores  a  mere  Hungarian  exile,  —  instead  of 
one  of  those  great  spirits  with  which  God  at  rare  inter- 
vals blesses  the  ages,  with  hearts  so  large  that  for  them 
the  world  is  their  country,  and  every  man,  especially 
every  oppressed  man,  is  a  brother  ? 

Men  say,  "  Why  criticise  Kossuth,  when  you  have 
every  reason  to  believe  that,  in  his  heart,  he  sympa- 
thizes with  you?"  Just  for' that  reason  we  criticise 
him ;  because  he  endorses  the  great  American  lie,  that 
to  save  or  benefit  one  class,  a  man  may  righteously  sac- 
rifice the  rights  of  another.  Because,  while  the  Ameri- 
can world  knows  him  to  be  a  hater  of  slavery,  they  see 
him  silent  on  that  question,  hear  him  eulogize  a  na- 
tion of  slave-holders,  to  carry  his  point.  What  greater 
wrong  can  he  do  the  slave  than  thus  to  strengthen  his 
foes  in  their  own  good  opinion  of  themselves,  and 
weaken,  by  his  example,  that  public  rebuke  to  which 
alone  the  negro  can  trust  for  ultimate  redemption  ?  He 
whom  tyrants  hated  on  the  other  side  the  ocean,  is  the 


KOSSUTH.  53 

favored  guest  of  tyrants  on  this  side.  He  eats  salt  with 
the  Ilaynaus  of  Washington.  It  is  high  time  that  he 
explain  to  Europe  the  geographical  morality  "that  en- 
ables him  to  do  it,  and  be  still  the  Louis  Kossuth  whose 
wandering  steps  Russian  vengeance  thought  it  worth 
while  to  follow.  Could  he  have  filed  his  tongue  as  cun- 
ningly at  home,  why  should  he  ever  have  left  Pesth  ? 
Or  shall  we  deem  him  a  man  hotly  indignant  at  his  own 
wrongs,  and  those  of  his  own  blood,  but  cold  to  those 
of  men  whose  skin  is  some  few  shades  darker  than  his 
own  ? 

Kossuth  has  sacrificed  the  cause  of  liberty  itself ;  he 
has  consented  to  praise  a  nation  whose  freedom  is  a 
sham ;  he  has  consented  to  praise  the  nation  which 
tramples  Mexico  under  foot ;  he  has  consented  to  praise 
them  that  he  might  save  Hungary,  —  then  rate  him  at 
his  right  price.  The  freedom  of  twelve  millions  bought 
the  silence  of  Louis  Kossuth  for  a  year.  A  world  in  the 
scale  never  bought  the  silence  of  O'Connell  or  Fayette 
for  a  moment.  That  is  just  the  difference  between 
him  and  them.  O'Connell  (I  was  t/6ld  the  anecdote  by 
Sir  Thomas  Fowell  Buxtoir),  in  18^9,  after  his  election 
to  the  House  of  Commons,  was  called  upon  by  the  West 
India  interest  —  some  fifty  or  sixty  strong  —  who  said, 
"  O'Connell,  you  have  been  accustomed  to  act  with  Clark- 
son  and  Wilberforce,  Lushington  and  Brougham,  to 
speak  on  the  platform  of  Freemasons'  Hall,  and  advo- 
cate what  is  called  the  abolition  cause.  Mark  this!  If 
you  will  break  loose  from  these  associates,  if  you  will 
close  your  mouth  on  the  slave  question,  you  may  reckon 
on  our  undivided  support  on  Irish  matters.  Whenever 
your  country's  claims  come  up,  you  shall  be  sure  of  fifty 
votes  on  your  side."  "  No  !  "  said  O'Connell ;  u  let  God 
care  for  Ireland  ;  I  will  never  shut  my  mouth  on  the 
slave  question  to  save  her  !  "  [Loud  cheers,]  He  stood 


54  KOSSUTH. 

with  eight  millions  whom  he  loved  ;  he  stood  with  a 
peasantry  at  his  back  meted  out  and  trodden  under  foot 
as  cruelly  as  the  Magyar ;  he  stood  with  those  behind 
him  who  had  been  trampled  under  the  horses'  feet  of 
the  British  soldiery  in  1782  and  1801 ;  he  knew  the  pov- 
erty and  wretchedness,  he  knew  the  oppression  under 
which  the  Irish  groaned  :  but  never  for  a  moment,  would 
he  consent  to  lift  Ireland,  —  whose  woes,  we  may  well 
suppose,  rested  heavily  on  the  heart  of  her  greatest  son, 
—  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  interests  or  the  freedom  of  any 
other  portion  of  the  race.  u  When,"  said  the  friend  who 
told  me  this  anecdote,  in  conclusion,  —  "when  there  were 
no  more  than  two  or  three  of  us  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, O'Connell  would  leave  any  court  or  any  meeting 
to  be  present  at  the  division,  and  vote  on  our  side." 
That  is  the  type  of  a  man  who  tries  by  its  proper 
standard  the  claims  of  all  classes  upon  his  sympathy. 
He  did  for  Ireland  all  that  God  had  enabled  him  to  do  ; 
but  there  was  one  thing  which  God  had  not  called  upon 
him  to  do,  and  that  was  to  speak  a  falsehood,  or  to  belie 
his  convictions.  He  did  not  undertake  to  serve  his 
country  by  being  silent  when  he  knew  he  ought  to 
speak,  or  by  speaking  in  language  that  should  convey  a 
false  impression  to  his  hearer. 

Kossuth  is  filled  with  overflowing  love  for  Hungary, 
which  lies  under  the  foot  of  the  Czar.  Now  let  us  sup- 
pose a  parallel  case.  Suppose  that  Lafayette  were  now 
living,  and  that  the  great  Frenchman  had  seen  his  idea 
of  liberty  for  France  go  down  in  blood.  We  will  sup- 
pose that,  despairing  of  doing  anything  at  home,  he  had 
concluded  to  appeal  to  some  foreign  nation  for  aid ;  that 
Fayette,  with  his  European  reputation,  considered  the 
great  apostle  of  human  liberty,  and  his  voice  the  seal 
and  stamp  of  republican  principles,— Fayette  goes  to 
Vienna  for  help.  He  goes  to  Austria  for  help  on  his 


KOSSUTH.  55 

side  in  French  politics,  as  Kossuth  comes  here  for  help 
on  his  side  of  Hungarian  politics,  —  to  Austria,  with 
Hungary  bleeding  at  her  feet,  and  Kossuth  in  exile. 

After  all,  it  is  national  politics  in  which  he  asks  us 
to  interfere  at  whatever  hazard.  What  is  Hungary  ? 
Twelve  millions  of  people  under  the  iron  foot  of  the 
Russian  Czar,  by  means  of  his  puppet,  the  Emperor  of 
Austria.  What  says  he  to  America  ?  "  I  do  not  wish 
to  be  entangled  with  American  politics."  As  one  of 
our  own  citizens  said  to  me  the  other  day,  "  What 
comes  this  fellow  here  for  ?  I  do  not  wish  to  meddle 
with  Austrian  politics."  The  question  of  the  liberty  of 
twelve  millions  in  Hungary  is  as  much  a  question  of 
Austrian  politics,  as  the  question  of  the  three  millions 
of  slaves  under  the  United  States  Constitution,  and  the 
human  beings  sent  back  as  chattels  under  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  of  1851,  is  a  question  of  American  politics. 

Do  not  think  either  that  I  am  so  far  out  of  the  way  in 
sending  Fayette  to  Austria.  Let  me  turn  aside  before 
I  finish  the  illustration.  What  is  Austria  ?  Who  is 
Haynau  ?  The  culminating  star  of  Austrian  atrocity, 
—  the  general  whose  name  recalls  everything  that  is 
most  monstrous  in  Austria's  treatment  of  down-trodden 
Hungary.  Haynau !  What  was  it  that  the  European 
press  charged  upon  him  as  his  greatest  atrocity  ?  Why, 
he  whipped  one  woman,  —  a  countess;  he  whipped  one 
woman  at  the  public  whipping-post.  The  press  of  Europe, 
from  the  banks  of  the  Volga  to  the  banks  of  the  Seine, 
from  the  Times  up  to  Punch,  denounced  him  as  a  libel 
on  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  a  brute 
who  had  disgraced  even  the  brutality  of  the  camp,  when 
he  dared,  in  the  face  of  Europe,  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, thus  to  outrage  the  common  feeling  of  the  world. 
That  is  Haynau ;  but  he  followed  the  example  of  half 
the  States  of  this  Union.  There,  woman-whipping  is 


56  KOSSUTH. 

the  law  and  custom  of  the  land.  There  are  a  hundred 
thousand  men  and  women  in  this  nation  who  have  a 
right  by  law  to  whip  a  million  and  a  half  of  women  in 
fifteen  of  the  Southern  States.  "  One  murder  makes  a 
villain  ;  millions  a  hero."  To  whip  one  woman  makes  a 
monster;  but  to  whip  millions  by  statute  is  to  make 
a  country  in  regard  to  which  it  is  the  highest  wish  of 
Kossuth  that  Hungary  may  be  like  her. 

In  view  of  this  and  similar  facts,  I  say,  there  is  not  a 
word  of  the  language  which  he  applied  to  Austria  that 
is  not  equally  applicable  to  the  laixd  which  imprisons 
Drayton  and  Sayres  in  the  jails  of  its  capital,  that  pur- 
sues Shadrach  without  mercy  (a  land  where  women 
are  whipped  by  statute),  —  and  there  is  not  a  word  of  all 
this  eloquent  eulogy  of  ourselves  which  is  not  equally 
applicable  to  Austria. 

I  send  Fayette,  therefore,  to  Austria.  Kossuth,  shel- 
tered by  the  Crescent,  hears  of  the  coming  of  Fayette 
to  Vienna.  How  his  heart  beats !  Now,  in  that  voice, 
venerable  with  its  age,  strong  in  the  millions  that  wait 
its  tones,  I  shall  hear  the  voice  of  a  deliverer.  Now  the 
heart  of  every  down-trodden  Hungarian  is  to  leap  for 
joy ;  now  a  sunbeam  shall  light  up  the  dungeons  of  my 
old  comrades, — for  Fayette  has  entered  Vienna.  Listen ! 
The  first  note  that  is  borne  to  him  down  the  waters  of 
the  Danube  is  that  of  Fayette  speaking  to  Haynau  of 
his  "  glorious  entry  into  the  capital  of  Hungary,"  as 
Kossuth  speaks  of  the  entrance  of  the  Americans  into 
the  capital  of  Mexico.  He  listens,  and  every  word  of 
the  eloquent  Frenchman  is  praise  of  the  Austrian  em- 
peror and  Austrian  institutions;  and  he  says, — words 
Kossuth  has  used  to  the  Americans,  — "  Cling  to  your 
Constitution  and  your  institutions.  Cling  to  them ! 
Let  no  misguided  citizen  ever  dream  of  tearing  down 
the  house  because  there  is  discomfort  in  one  of  the 


KOSSUTH.  57 

chambers."  And  suppose  he  heard  him  say,  "Let  no 
misguided  Magyar  ever  dream  of  tearing  asunder  this 
beautiful  empire  of  Austria,  because  there  is  discomfort 
in  that  one  chamber  of  Hungary."  What  would  have 
been  his  tone  in  answering  Fayette  ?  He  would  have 
said,  "Recreant!  What  right  have  you  to  purchase 
safety  for  France  by  sacrificing  the  people  of  Hungary, 
and  by  eulogizing  tyrants  ?"  [Tremendous  cheering.] 

Just  such  is  the  message  that  the  American  slaves 
send  back  to  Kossuth,  "  Recreant !  If  you  could  not 
speak  a  free  word  for  liberty  the  wide  world  over,  why 
came  you  to  this  land  stained  and  polluted  by  our  blood  ? 
What  right  had  you  to  purchase  with  your  silence  aid 
for  Hungary,  or  throw  the  weight  of  your  great  name 
into  the  scale  of  our  despair?"  "Oh,  no,"  said  O'Con- 
nell,  "  I  will  never  tread  that  American  strand,  until 
she  removes  the  curse  of  American  slavery  from  her 
statute-book."  It  was  well  he  did  not.  Hardly  any 
man  can  stand  against  the  temptations  of  our  great 
political  iniquity. 

Kossuth  has  come  here  on  the  glorious  mission  of 
redeeming  Hungary.  God  speed  him  in  every  step  —  in 
every  honest  step  —  that  he  takes  to  lift  up  the  Magyar, 
that  he  may  raise  the  nations  of  Europe !  But,  oh,  if  he 
only  lift  her  up  by  using  for  his  fulcrum  the  chains  of 
the  slave ;  if  he  only  lift  her  up  by  using  language  which 
shall  strengthen  the  hearts  of  the  oppressor  in  this  land, 
which  shall  make  those  who  love  this  Union  lay  the  flat- 
tering unction  to  their  souls,  "  Kossuth  is  an  experienced 
man,  he  understands  our  institutions,  and  sees  nothing 
to  blame  in  them,"-  — then  perish  Hungary  before  he 
succeed ! 

The  very  Congress  that  invited  this  man  to  our  shores, 
and  passed  a  resolution  placing  a  national  vessel  at  his 
^service,  is  the  very  Congress  that  passed  the  Fugitive 
• 


58  KOSSUTH. 

Slave  Bill.  He  knows  it.  The  very  man  who  sent  for 
the  Hungarian  exile,  condemned  to  hopeless  bondage 
hundreds  who,  but  for  that  law,  might  have  been  saved. 
Why,  if  you  had  stood,  as  some  of  us  have  done,  by  the 
domestic  fireside  of  hundreds  of  fugitive  slaves  who  had 
been  happy  at  the  North  for  ten,  fifteen,  aye,  twenty 
years,  and  had  seen  the  utter  wretchedness  of  those 
persecuted  men  when  they  felt  that  father  or  mother 
or  wife  or  child  must  be  borne  away  to  the  Southern 
plantation,  or  must  make  themselves  exiles  by  going  to 
Canada,  or  even  to  England,  and  reflected  that  these 
scenes  are  wrought  by  the  very  men  who  have  welcomed 
the  great  Hungarian  to  this  country,  and  then,  when  he 
came,  that  he  had  no  words  but  words  of  eulogy, — 
how  should  you  judge  his  spirit  ? 

Bear  with  me  in  yet  one  illustration  more.  Men  are 
known  by  the  company  they  keep.  It  seems  to  me  right 
to  judge  Kossuth  so  in  this  instance.  Suppose  a  friend 
of  liberty  had  gone  across  the  water  six  months  ago. 
Would  he  have  sought  the  society  of  the  illustrious  free 
spirits  that  were  the  apostles  of  the  great  ideas  of  that 
country,  or  would  he  have  gone  to  the  court  of  the 
Caesar  ?  Would  he  have  gone  to  the  palace  of  Vienna, 
or  to  Metternich  ?  Would  he  have  gone  to  the  country- 
seat  of  Haynau,  or  to  any  other  name  recognized  the 
world  over  as  an  apostate  to  principle,  to  humanity, 
to  equal  rights?  Or  would  he  have  gone  to  that 
Kossuth,  that  Dembinski,  —  to  the  men  who  are 
now  exiles  or  imprisoned  throughout  the  length  of 
the  Austrian  empire,  to  the  graves  of  those  who  have 
been  murdered  on  battlefield  or  in  Haynau's  camp  ? 
Would  not  their  prisons  have  been  the  first  scenes  of 
his  visit,  that  he  might  give  his  sympathy  to  the  men 
who  were  suffering  in  a  cause  so  dear  to  his  heart? 
Certainly.  We  go  where  we  are  magnetically  drawn; 


KOSSUTH.  59 

we  cannot  resist  rushing  into  the  arms  of  those  whose 
hearts  beat  responsive  to  our  own.     If  a  Socialist  visits 
Paris,  he  goes  to  Prudhomme.     If  an  Antislavery  man 
goes  to  Paris,  he  goes  to  De  Broglie.     As  Dr.  Jackson 
said  of  his  lamented  son,  who  died  recently  in  Boston, 
in  whatever  company  he  went  he  nailed  his  flag  high, 
that   all   men   might  know   his    principles.      [Cheers.] 
Now,  I  say,  that  Louis  Kossuth  did  not  nail  the  flag  of 
his  principles  high  to  the  mast ;  if  he  had,  Hangman 
Foote  would  never   have  invited   him  to  Washington. 
The  world-wide  love  of  man,  the  burning  enthusiasm, 
the  hatred  of  all  oppression,  that  gathered  two  hundred 
thousand  living  hearts  in  Hungary;  melted  them  into 
one  giant  mass  by  the  magnetism  of  his  great  nature ; 
and  hurled  them  like  an  awful  thunderbolt  against  the 
throne  of  the  Caesars,  —  all  that  has  not  crossed  the 
Atlantic ;  if  it  had,  the  pro-slavery  divines  of  New  York 
—  the  men  who  say  they  dare  not  utter  even  a  prayer 
for  the  three   millions  of   blacks  —  would   never   have 
gathered  around  it.     He  will  go  to  Washington,  and  to 
whom  ?     To  Daniel  Webster  and    to  Hangman  Foote. 
Had  he  been  the  Kossuth  of  Pesth,  —  the  Kossuth  whom 
Gorgei  betrayed,  —  he  would  have  gone  to  the  prison  of 
Drayton  and  Sayres  to  see  the  men  who  have  been  made 
a  sacrifice  for  the  crime  of  loving  their  brother-man  as 
they   loved    themselves.     He   would    have    said,    "No 
matter  what  your  laws  are,  I  broke  the  laws  of  Aus- 
tria  for   the   Magyar."     The    European   who   has    rent 
parchments  to  rags  when  they  stood  in  the  way  of  lib- 
erty, who  has  trampled  on  laws  a  thousand  years  old 
when  they  stood  in  the  way  of  humanity  and  justice ; 
that  man,  who  comes  to  America  and  goes  not  to  the 
prison  of  Drayton  and  Sayres,  to  the  court-house  where 
the  men  are  being  tried  for  the  Christiana  riots,  as  our 
press  calls  them,  —  has  lowered  the  tone  of  his  spirit, 


60  KOSSUTH. 

and  compromised  that  great  fame  which  came  over 
before  him. 

This  is  the  indictment  that  the  Abolitionists  bring 
against  him.  It  is  not  that  he  does  not  love  Hungary. 
It  is  not  that  he  is  a  coward  and  that  his  philanthrophy 
shrinks  before  the  public  opinion  of  America.  No  !  We 
do  not  know  that  he  was  ever  afraid  of  anything  below 
God.  Though  no  coward,  he  is  selfish,  —  just  as  selfish 
as  all  patriotism  is.  He  loves  his  own  land,  and  to  that 
land  he  is  willing  to  sacrifice  the  duty  he  owes  to  truth. 
"An  advocate,"  said  Lord  Brougham,  defending  Queen 
Caroline,  "  by  the  sacred  duty  which  he  owes  his  .client, 
knows  in  the  discharge  of  that  office  but  one  person  in 
the  world,  —  that  client  and  none  other.  To  save  that 
client  by  all  expedient  means ;  to  protect  that  client  at 
all  hazards  and  costs  to  all  others,  and  among  others  to 
himself,  —  is  the  highest  and  most  unquestioned  of  his 
duties  ;  and  he  must  not  regard  the  alarm,  the  suffering, 
the  torment,  the  destruction  which  he  may  bring  upon 
any  other"  Now  that,  in  another  form,  is  Kossuth's 
patriotism.  "  I  love  Hungary,"  says  he  ;  "  stand  aside 
all  ye  other  races !  I  will  so  mould  my  language,  I  will 
so  pour  out  my  eulogy,  I  will  so  lavish  my  praise,  that 
I  will  save  her  ;  let  other  races  take  care  of  themselves." 

This,  then,  is  the  criticism  of  the  Antislavery  reformer : 
Whoever  strengthens  the  American  Union  strengthens 
the  chain  of  the  American  slave ;  whoever  praises  the 
policy  of  this  country  since  the  Constitution  began, 
whether  in  Florida  or  Mexico,  strengthens  the  public 
opinion  which  supports  it ;  whoever  strengthens  that 
opinion  is  a  foe  to  the  slave.  Louis  Kossuth  has  thrown 
at  the  feet  of  the  Union  party  the  weight  of  his  gigantic 
name,  and  every  conscience  that  had  begun  to  be  troubled 
is  put  to  sleep :  "  Kossuth  is  free  from  American  preju- 
dices, unbiassed  and  disinterested.  He  tells  me  to  love 


KOSSUTH. 


61 


the  Union.  So  I  will  observe  the  laws ;  so  I  will  banish 
the  slave  from  my  thoughts,  as  Kossuth  does.  Kossuth 
saves  Hungary  by  subserviency  to  the  South  ;  I  will  save 
the  Union  in  the  same  way."  This  is  the  same  old  prin- 
ciple the  world  round,  How  much  truth  may  I  sacrifice 
in  order  to  save  some  little  Zoar  in  which  God  has  given 
me  a  being  ?  How  much  silencing  of  the  truth  is  per- 
mitted us  here  by  God,  in  order  that  we  may  help  him 
govern  the  world  ?  How  many  noble  instincts  may  we 
stifle,  how  many  despot  hearts  may  we  comfort,  to  help 
God  save  America  ?  None  !  [Great  cheering.]  No,  he 
did  not  send  us  into  the  world  to  free  the  slave.  He 
did  not  send  Kossuth  into  the  world  to  save  Hungary. 
He  sent  him  into  the  world  to  speak  his  whole  truth,  for 
the  white  man  and  for  the  black  man  ;  to  feel  as  a  man 
for  his  brother-man  ;  and  to  speak  what  he  felt ,  —  then, 
if  Hungary  is  saved,  to  join  in  the  jubilee  with  which 
all  would  celebrate  her  salvation.  [Loud  cheers.]  Oh, 
men  are  so  ready  to  take  upon  themselves  the  great 
responsibility  of  doing  some  great  work  in  tlie  world  !  I 
have  got  to  save  the  Union,  and  therefore  I  must  return 
fugitive  slaves.  I  have  got  to  redeem  Hungary,  and 
therefore  I  may  be  an  American  dough-face,  instead  of 
a  European  patriot. 

This  is  the  verdict  that  history  shall  bring.  When, 
hereafter,  the  historian  is  telling  the  story  of  some  great 
man  who  has  done  service  to  his  kind,  if  he  be  one  who 
loved  only  his  own  race  or  color  or  country,  and  stopped 
there,  —  who  loved  a  Frenchman  because  he  was  him- 
self born  in  Paris  ;  or,  born  in  London,  was  ready  to 
serve  all  Englishmen,  —  if  he  were  one  who  has  ren- 
dered some  great  service  to  a  single  nation,  or  loved  his 
own  race  and  hated  all  others,  he  shall  say,  "  This  was 
a  great  man  ;  he  was  the  Kossuth,  the  Webster  of  his 
day."  But  when  he  shall  dip  his  pen  in  the  sunlight, 


62  KOSSUTH. 

to  immortalize  some  greater  spirit  than  that,  —  one 
whose  philanthrophy,  like  the  ocean,  knew  no  bounds ; 
the  eagle  of  whose  spirit,  towering  in  its  pride  of  place, 
looked  down  upon  the  earth,  and  saw  blotted  out  from 
the  mighty  scene  all  the  little  lines  with  which  man  had 
narrowed  it  in,  and  took  in  every  human  being  as  a 
brother,  and  loved  all  races  with  an  equal  humanity  ; 
who  never  silenced  the  truth  that  the  white  man  might 
longer  trample  on  the  black,  or  thought  the  safety  of  his 
own  land  cheaply  bought  at  the  price  of  lavish  eulogies 
laid  on  the  footstool  of  petty  tyrants,  —  he  shall  dip  his 
pen  in  the  gorgeous  hues  of  the  sunlight  and  write, 
"  This  was  a  greater  man  yet ;  he  was  a  Garrison,  an 
O'Connell,  a  Fayette."  [Loud  and  continued  cheers.] 

Now,  this  is  the  exact  difference  which  the  Antislavery 
world  recognizes  in  Kossuth.  He  is  the  man  who  has 
been  content  to  borrow  his  tone  from  the  atmosphere  in 
which  he  moved.  He  has  offered  American  patriotism 
the  incense  of  his  eulogy,  and  has  by  that  course  con- 
sented to  do  service  to  the  dark  spirit  of  American 
slavery.  We  find  no  fault  with  any  expression  of  his 
gratitude  ;  but  gratitude  to  the  administration  of  the 
country  was  not  necessarily  eulogy  of  all  its  institutions. 
A  man  may  thank  a  benefactor  without  endorsing  his 
character !  He  came  to  a  land  where  every  sixth  man 
is  a  slave,  and  where  the  national  banner  clings  to  the 
flag-staff  heavy  with  blood,  and  the  lips  which  proclaimed 
the  freedom  of  the  Hungarian  serf  have  found  no  occa- 
sion but  for  eulogy  !  He  came  to  a  land  where  the  Bible 
is  prohibited,  by  statute,  to  three  millions  of  human  be- 
ings ;  to  whom,  also,  the  marriage  institution  is  a  forbid- 
den blessing,  —  and  the  eminently  religious  Hungarian 
can  find  no  occasion  but  for  eulogy  !  He  came  to  a  land 
where  almost  every  village  in  the  free  States  has  more 
than  one  trembling  fugitive  who  dare  not  tell  his  true 


KOSSUTH.  63 

name,  and  the  great  martyr  for  personal  liberty  can  find 
no  occasion  but  for  eulogy  !  He  came  to  a  land,  of  the 
fundamental  arrangement  of  whose  government  John 
Quincy  Adams  says  :  "  It  is  not  in  the  compass  of  human 
imagination  to  devise  a  more  perfect  exemplification  of 
the  art  of  committing  the  lamb  to  the  custody  of  the 
wolf,"  and  to  "  call  whose  government  a  democracy 
would  be  to  insult  the  understanding  of  mankind,"  — 
and  the  apostle  of  civil  liberty  sees  only  a  "  glorious 
republic,  .  .  .  great,  glorious,  and  free,  .  .  .  the  pillar 
of  freedom ; "  and  all  he  prays  for  his  own  country  is, 
that  "  she  may  be  as  free  and  as  happy  in  the  establish- 
ment of  the  same  great  principle  "  ! ! 

He  comes  to  a  land  where,  according  to  the  same  in- 
disputable authority,  "  a  knot  of  slave-holders  give  the  law 
and  prescribe  the  policy  of  the  country  ;  "  and  the  indig- 
nant foe  of  Austrian  rule,  "  his  eyes  sharpened  by  a 
tempest-tossed  life,"  finds  no  occasion  but  for  eulogy  ! 
He  comes  to  a  land  where,  says  the  same  venerable 
statesman,  "  the  preservation,  propagation,  and  perpetua- 
tion of  slavery  is  the  vital  and  animating  spirit  of  the 
National  Government"  and  where,  since  1780,  "  slavery, 
slave-holding,  slave-breeding,  and  slave-trading  have 
formed  the  whole  foundation  of  the  policy  of  the  Federal 
Government ;  "  and  "  the  sharpened  eyes  "  of  the  Euro- 
pean patriot,  whose  baptism  of  liberty  was  in  the  damps 
of  an  Austrian  dungeon,  sees  only  "  a  glorious  country, 
.  .  .  great,  glorious,  and  free ;  .  .  .  a  glorious  republic  ; " 
her  "  glorious  flag  the  proud  ensign  of  man's  divine 
origin  ; "  "  the  asylum  of  oppressed  humanity  ; "  her  wel- 
come "the  trumpet  of  resurrection  for  down-trodden 
humanity  throughout  the  world  ; "  her  language  "  the 
language  of  liberty,  and  therefore  the  language  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States."  His  confidence  of  ultimate 
success  springs  from  the  thought  that  "  there  is  a  God 


64  KOSSUTH. 

in  heaven  and  a  people  like  the  Americans  on  earth." 
He  makes  haste  to  declare  how  easy  it  is  to  read  the 
heart  of  this  slave-holding,  slave-breeding,  and  slave- 
trading  people,  because  "  it  is  open  like  Nature  and  un- 
polluted like  a  virgin's  heart;"  that  others  may  "  shut 
their  ears  to  the  cry  of  oppressed  humanity,  because 
they  regard  duties  but  through  the  glass  of  petty  inter- 
ests "  /  But  this  slave-holding  and  slave-trading  people 
"  has  that  instinct  of  justice  and  generosity  which  is  the 
stamp  of  mankind's  heavenly  origin ;  knows  that  it  has 
the  power  to  restore  the  law  of  nations  to  the  principles 
of  justice  and  right ;  and  is  willing  to  be  as  good  as  its 
power  is  great  "  ! ! !  Does  the  great  statesman-like  heart 
of  Kossuth  believe  all  this  ?  If  he  does  not,  is  the  most 
devoted  lover  of  liberty  ever  bound  to  lay  on  her  altar 
the  sacrifice  of  hypocrisy  ?  Or  was  any  cause  ever  yet 
strengthened  by  lips  that  belied  the  heart  ? 

In  his  last  speech  at  Philadelphia,  he  goes,  for  the 
first  time,  further,  explains  his  plan,  and  pledges  himself 
distinctly  to  silence.  There  are  two  words  which  one 
would  think  Kossuth  had  never  conquered,  even  in  his 
marvellous  mastery  of  the  English  tongue,  —  "  slavery  " 
and  "  slave-holding ; "  and  even  here,  while  necessarily 
alluding  to  them,  he  cannot  frame  his  lips  to  speak  their 
syllables.  Some  one  had  forged  the  following  letter  to 
him,  warning  him  of  his  nearness  to  the  slave-holding 
States  :  — 

December  23,  1851. 
Hon.  Louis  KOSSUTII  : 

RESPECTED  SIR,  —  It  is  my  unpleasant  duty  to  apprise 
you  that  the  intervention  or  non-intervention  sentiments 
that  you  have  promulgated  in  3*our  speeches  in  the  city 
of  New  York,  are  unsuitable  to  the  region  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, situated  as  she  is  on  the  borders  of  several  slave- 
holding  States  ;  and  after  a  conference  with  my  distinguished 


KOSSUTH.  65 

uncle  the  Hon.  John  Sargent,  the  Hon.  Horace  Binney, 
and  other  distinguished  counsellors,  who  concur  with  me 
in  the  sentiment,  I  feel,  most  reluctantly  I  assure  you,  that 
such  sentiments  are  incendiary  in  their  character  and  effect ; 
and  as  the  conservator  of  the  public  morals  and  peace  of 
the  country,  having  sworn  to  comply  with  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  and  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  on 
taking  upon  myself  the  office  of  Attorney-General  of  the 
County  of  Philadelphia,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  bring  any 
such  sentiments  to  the  notice  of  the  Grand  Inquest  of  the 
county  for  their  action  and  consideration. 

Respectfully, 
W.  B.  REED,  Attorney-General. 

Kossuth  thus  comments  on  this  letter :  — 

"Now,  such  a  letter,  and  yet  a  forgery,  indeed,  is  a  des- 
picable trick ;  but  though  it  is  a  forgery,  still  there  is  one 
thing  which  forces  me  to  some  humble  remarks,  precisely 
because  I  know  not  whence  comes  the  blow.  I  am  referring 
to  these  words  :  c  Your  intervention  or  non-intervention  sen- 
timents are  nnsuited  to  the  region  of  Pennsylvania,  situated 
as  she  is  on  the  borders  of  several  slave-holding  States.'  I 
avail  myself  of  this  opportunity  to  declare  once  more  that 
I  never  did  or  will  do  anything  which,  in  the  remotest  way, 
could  interfere  with  the  matter  alluded  to,  nor  with  whatever 
other  domestic  question  of  3~our  united  Republic,  or  of  a  sin- 
gle State  of  it.  I  have  declared  it  openly  several  times,  and 
on  all  and  every  opportunity  I  have  proved  to  be  as  good  as 
my  word.  I  dare  say  that  even  the  pledge  of  the  word  of 
honor  of  an  honest  man  should  not  be  considered  a  sufficient 
security  in  that  respect.  The  publicly  avowed  basis  of  my 
human  claims,  and  the  unavoidable  logic  of  it  would  prove 
to  be  a  decisive  authorit}'. 

u  What  is  the  ground  upon  which  I  stand  before  the 
mighty  tribunal  of  the  public  opinion  of  the  United  States? 
It  is  the  sovereign  right  of  every  nation  to  dispose  of  its  own 

5 


68  KOSSUTH. 

domestic  concerns.  [Great  applause.]  What  is  it  I  humbly 
ask  of  the  United  States  ?  It  is  that  they  ma}'  generous!}7 
be  pleased  to  protect  this  sovereign  right  of  every  nation 
against  the  encroaching  violence  of  Russia.  It  is,  therefore, 
eminent!}7  clear  that,  this  being  my  ground,  I  cannot  and 
will  not  meddle  with  any  domestic  question  of  this  Republic. 
[Applause.]  Indeed,  I  more  and  more  perceive  that,  to 
speak  with  Hamlet,  4  there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  than  were  dreamed  of  in  my  philosophy.'  [Laughter 
and  applause.]  But  still,  I  will  stand  upright,  on  however 
slippery  ground,  by  taking  hold  of  that  legitimate  fence  of 
not  meddling  in  your  domestic  questions." 

What,  then,  is  the  shadowy  line  by  which,  while  he 
claims  our  sympathy  and  aid  for  Hungary,  he  separates 
the  slave's  claim  from  his  own  ?  Simply  this,  Hungary 
asks  for  rights  which  ancient  charters  secured  to  her ; 
the  slave  has  no  charters,  no  parchments  to  show,  — 
therefore,  we  ought  to  love  and  aid  the  Magyar ;  there- 
fore, Douglass  can  claim  nothing  of  Kossuth !  And 
can  the  soul  of  Kossuth  rise  no  higher  than  the  level  of 
human  parchments  ?  Or  can  he  plead  for  liberty  with 
such  bated  breath  and  whispered  humbleness,  that  to 
serve  his  purpose  he  can  remember  always  to  forget 
the  self-evident  rights  which  God  gave,  —  to  which  the 
slave  has  as  much  right  as  the  noblest  Magyar  of  them 
all  ?  More  than  this,  can  he  find  it  in  his  heart  to 
strengthen  by  his  silence,  by  his  example,  and  his  name, 
the  hands  of  the  ruthless  violator  of  those  rights ;  cry 
"  glorious  "  and  "  amen,"  while  the  black  is  robbed  of  his 
hard  toil,  of  the  Bible,  of  chastity,  wife,  husband,  and 
child, —  only  to  persuade  slave-holders  to  aid  in  securing 
for  the  Magyar  peasant  the  right  to  vote,  and  for  the 
Magyar  noble  the  right  to  legislate  ?  The  world  thought 
his  lips  had  been  touched  by  a  coal  from  the  altar  of  the 
living  God, —  and  lo !  he  has  bargained  away  his  very 


KOSSUTH.  67 

utterance,  and  presents  himself  before  us  thus  cheaply 
bought  and  gagged  ! 

His  parallel  of  the  non-intervention  of  States  is  not  a 
just  one.  No  one  asks  England  to  interfere  with  our 
slave  question.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  she  pronounces 
no  opinion  on  our  government  in  general ;  she  does  not 
expend  herself  in  glowing,  unqualified,  and  indiscrimi- 
nate eulogy  of  our  institutions,  or  strengthen  the  hands 
of  their  friends  by  holding  them  up  to  the  world  as  the 
first  hope  of  redemption  to  oppressed  nations,  and  the 
fairest  model  of  republican  perfection.  The  same  is 
true  of  Kossuth.  While  at  home,  all  the  world  asked 
of  him  was  to  stand  in  his  lot,  and  do  gallant  battle  for 
his  land  and  people.  When  he  comes  here,  and  gives 
the  listening  world  his  judgment  of  our  institutions,  - 
mingling  himself  thus,  whether  he  will  or  no,  with  our 
great  national  struggle,  —  he  owes  it  to  truth,  to  liberty, 
and  the  slave,  that  such  judgment  should  be  a  true,  dis- 
criminating, and  honest  one.  If  the  opinion  he  has  pro- 
nounced be  his  honest  judgment,  what  will  men  say 
of  that  heart  whose  halting  sympathies  allowed  him  to 
overlook  a  system  of  oppression  which  Wesley  called 
the  "  vilest  the  sun  ever  saw,"  and  which  made  Jeffer- 
son "  tremble  for  his  country,  when  he  remembered  that 
God  was  just "  ?  If  it  be  not  his  honest  judgment,  but 
only  fawning  words,  uttered  to  gain  an  end,  what  will 
men  say  of  thev  Jesuit  who  thought  he  owed  it  to  Hun- 
gary to  serve  her,  or,  indeed,  imagined  that  he  could 
serve  her,  by  lips  that  clung  not  to  the  truth  ?  When 
Rome's  ransom  was  weighing  out,  the  insolent  con- 
queror flung  his  sword  into  the  scale  against  it.  So  at 
the  moment  when  the  fate  of  the  slave  hangs  trembling 
in  the  balance,  and  all  he  has  wherewith  to  weigh  down 
the  brute  strength  of  his  oppressor  is  the  sympathy  of 
good  men  and  the  indignant  protest  of  the  world,  Kos- 


68  KOSSUTH. 

suth,  with  the  eyes  of  all  nations  fixed  upon  him,  throws 
the  weight  of  his  great  name,  of  his  lavish  and  un- 
qualified approbation  into  the  scale  of  the  slave-holder, 
crying  out  all  the  while,  "  Non-intervention  !  " 

Truly  these  eyes  that  see  no  race  but  the  Magyar,  and 
no  wrongs  but  those  of  Hungary,  may  be  the  eyes  of  a 
great  Hungarian  and  a  great  patriot,  but  God  forbid  they 
should  be  the  eyes  of  a  man  or  a  Christian  ! 

Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori.  Every  heart 
responds  to  the  classic  patriot,  and  feels  that  it  is 
indeed  good  and  honorable  to  die  for  one's  country ; 
but  every  true  man  feels  likewise,  with  old  Fletcher  of 
Saltoun,  that  while  he  "  would  die  to  serve  his  country, 
he  would  not  do  a  base  act  to  save  her." 


CRISPUS   ATTUCKS. 


Speech  delivered  at  the  Festival  commemorative  of  the  Boston 
Massacre,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  March  5,  1858. 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  I  am  very  glad  to  stand 
here  in  an  hour  when  we  come  together  to  do 
honor  to  one  of  the  first  martyrs  in  our  Revolution. 
I  think  we  sometimes  tell  the  story  of  what  he  did  with 
too  little  appreciation  of  how  much  it  takes  to  make  the 
first  move  in  the  cold  streets  of  a  revolutionary  epoch. 
It  is  a  very  easy  thing  to  sit  down  and  read  the  his- 
tory ;  it  is  a  very  easy  thing  to  imagine  what  we  would 
have  done,  —  it  is  a  very  different  thing  to  strike  the  first 
blow.  It  is  a  very  hard  thing  to  spring  out  of  the  ranks 
of  common,  every-day  life  —  submission  to  law,  rec- 
ognition of  established  government  —  and  lift  the  first 
musket.  The  man  or  the  dozen  men  who  do  it,  deserve 
great,  pre-eminent,  indisputable  places  in  the  history  of 
the  Revolution.  It  is  an  easy  thing  to  fight  when  the 
blood  is  hot ;  but  this  man  whose  memory  we  commem- 
orate to-night  stepped  out  of  common  life,  every-day 
quiet,  and  lifted  his  arm  among  the  very  first  against 
the  government.  It  is  only  pre-eminent  courage  that 
can  do  this.  To-day,  in  yonder  capital  of  Paris,  the 
whole  government  rests  on  a  thin  film  of  ice.  A  hun- 
dred men  in  arms  in  the  streets  would  break  it;  that 
hundred  men  cannot  be  found,  —  a  hundred  men  willing 
to  risk  their  lives,  with  a  cold,  unmoved  populace  behind 


70  CRISPUS    ATTUCKS. 

them.  Those  five  men  who  were  killed  on  that  eventful 
night  of  the  5th  of  March,  of  whom  Crispus  Attucks 
was  the  leader,  —  they  never  have  had  their  fair  share 
of  fame. 

Our  friend  Theodore  Parker  said  the  Revolution 
was  not  born  so  early.  I  think  him  wrong  there ; 
it  was.  Emerson  said  the  first  gun  heard  round  the 
world  was  that  of  Lexington.  Who  set  the  example 
of  guns  ?  Who  taught  the  British  soldier  that  he  might 
he  defeated  ?  Who  dared  first  to  look  into  his  eyes  ? 
Those  five  men  !  The  5th  of  March  was  the  baptism 
of  blood.  The  5th  of  March  was  what  made  the  Revo- 
lution something  beside  talk.  Revolution  always  begins 
with  the  populace,  never  with  the  leaders.  They  argue, 
they  resolve,  they  organize  ;  it  is  the  populace  that, 
like  the  edge  of  the  cloud,  shows  the  lightning  first. 
This  was  the  lightning.  I  hail  the  5th  of  March  as 
the  baptism  of  the  Revolution  into  forcible  resistance  ; 
without  that  it  would  have  been  simply  a  discussion  of 
rights.  I  place,  therefore,  this  Crispus  Attucks  in  the 
foremost  rank  of  the  men  that  dared.  When  we  talk 
of  courage,  he  rises,  with  his  dark  face,  in  his  clothes  of 
the  laborer,  his  head  uncovered,  his  arm  raised  above 
him  defying  bayonets,  —  the  emblem  of  Revolutionary 
violence  in  its  dawn ;  and  when  the  proper  symbols  are 
placed  around  the  base  of  the  statue  of  Washington, 
one  corner  will  be  filled  by  the  colored  man  defying 
the  British  muskets.  [Applause.] 

I  think  it  is  right  that  we  should  come  here  and 
remember  Crispus  Attucks.  It  is  right,  because  every 
colored  man  has  but  one  thing  to  remember  in  life, 
and  that  is  SLAVERY.  All  races  are  one  —  they  are 
a  unit.  The  white  race  is  a  unit,  the  Caucasian  race 
is  a  unit,  the  black  race  is  a  unit  —  one.  There  is  only 
one  great,  terrible  fact  in  regard  to  the  colored  race 


CRISPUS   ATTUCKS.  rfl 

at  the  present  moment,  —  it  is  that  millions  of  it  wear  e 
the  chain  ;  there  is  nothing  for  the  rest  of  the  race 
decent  to  do  but  to  devote  themselves  to  the  breaking 
of  that  chain.  [Applause.]  All  literature,  all  wealth, 
all  patriotism,  all  religion,  should  gravitate  toward 
emancipation.  I  value  the  triumphs  of  the  literary 
genius  of  Dumas  solely  as  an  argument  thrown  into 
the  scale  of  the  great  balance,  whether  the  colored  man 
is  worthy  of  liberty.  Genius  is  worth  nothing  else  now 
with  the  colored  man,  except  as  helping  that  argument. 
I  would  have  you,  as  your  friend  Dr.  Rock  suggested, 
thrifty,  eloquent,  industrious,  successful,  rich,  able,  only  'S 
as  an  argument  that  the  colored  race  has  a  right  to  a^ 
place  side  by  side  and  equal  with  the  white.  I  wish 
I  could  impress  this  truth  on  every  colored  man.  His 
race  to-day  is  on  trial.  The  world  says  it  merits  only 
chains.  The  best  thing  he  can  do  with  his  life,  with 
his  genius,  with  his  wealth,  with  his  character,  is  to 
throw  them  into  the  scale  of  the  argument,  and  make 
pro-slavery  prejudice  kick  the  beam. 

I  want  to  say  another  thing.  I  do  not  believe  in  the 
argument  which  my  learned  and  eloquent  friend  Theo- 
dore Parker  has  stated  in  regard  even  to  the  courage 
of  colored  blood.  It  is  a  hazardous  thing  to  dare  to 
differ  with  so  profound  a  scholar,  with  so  careful  a 
thinker  as  Theodore  Parker  ;  but  I  cannot  accept  his 
argument  and  for  this  reason, — he  says  the  Caucasian 
race,  each  man  of  it,  would  kill  twenty  men  and  enslave 
twenty  more  rather  than  be  a  slave  ;  and  thence  he 
deduces  that  the  colored  race,  which  suffers  slavery 
here,  is  not  emphatically  distinguished  for  courage. 
I  take  issue  on  that  statement.  There  is  no  race  in 
the  world  that  has  not  been  enslaved  at  one  period. 
This  very  Saxon  blood  we  boast,  was  enslaved  for  five 
centuries  in  Europe.  We  were  slaves,  —  we  white 


72  CRISPUS   ATTUCKS. 

people.  This  very  English  blood  of  ours  —  Saxon  — 
was  the  peculiar  mark  of  slavery  for  five  or  six  hundred 
years.  The  Slavonic  race,  of  which  we  are  a  branch, 
is  enslaved  by  millions  to-day  in  Russia.  The  French 
race  has  been  enslaved  for  centuries.  Then  add  this 
fact,  —  no  race,  not  one,  ever  vindicated  its  freedom 
from  slavery  by  the  sword  ;  we  did  not  win  freedom 
by  the  sword  ;  we  did  not  resist,  we  Saxons.  If  you 
go  to  the  catalogue  of  races  that  have  actually  abol- 
ished slavery  by  the  sword,  the  colored  race  is  the  only 
one  that  has  ever  yet  afforded  an  instance,  and  that  is 
St.  Domingo.  [Applause.]  This  white  race  of  ours  did 
not  vindicate  its  title  to  liberty  by  the  sword.  The  vil- 
leins of  England,  who  were  slaves,  did  not  get  their  own 
liberty ;  it  was  gotten  for  them.  They  did  not  even 
rise  in  insurrection,  —  they  were  quiet;  and  if  in  1200 
or  1300  of  the  Christian  era,  a  black  man  had  landed  on 
the  soil  of  England  and  said  :  "  This  white  race  does  n't 
deserve  freedom ;  don't  you  see  the  villeins  scattered 
through  Kent,  Northumberland,  and  Sussex  ?  Why 
don't  they  rise  and  cut  their  masters'  throats?"  —the 
Theodore  Parkers  of  that  age  would  have  been  like  the 
Dr.  Rocks  of  this,  —  they  could  not  have  answered. 
The  only  race  in  history  that  ever  took  the  sword  into 
their  hands,  and  cut  their  chains,  is  the  black  race  of 
St.  Domingo.  Let  that  fact  go  for  what  it  is  worth.  The 
villeinage  of  France  and  England  wore  out  by  the 
progress  of  commerce,  by  the  growth  of  free  cities,  by 
the  education  of  the  people,  by  the  advancement  of 
Christianity.  So  I  think  the  slavery  of  the  blacks  will 
wear  out.  I  think,  therefore,  that  the  simple  and  lim- 
ited experiment  of  three  centuries  of  black  slavery  is 
not  basis  enough  for  the  argument.  No ;  the  black  man 
may  well  scorn  it,  and  say,  "  I  summon  before  the 
jury,  Africa,  with  her  savage  millions,  that  has  main- 


CRISPUS   ATTUCKS.  73 

taincd  her  independence  for  two  or  three  thousand 
years  ;  i  summon  Egypt  with  the  arts  ;  I  summon  St. 
Domingo  with  the  sword,  —  and  I  choose  to  be  tried  in 
the  great  company  of  the  millions,  not  alone  ! "  And 
in  that  company,  he  may  claim  to  have  shown  as  much 
courage  as  any  other  race  —  full  as  much. 

I,  therefore,  will  never  try  the  argument  with  the 
single  illustration  of  American  slavery.  No ;  and  yet 
if  1  did,  I  should  he  proud  to  have  the  same  color  with 
Margaret  Garner ; l  for  I  know  of  no  prouder  name  in 
the  history  of  the  nineteenth  century  than  of  that 
heroic  mother,  standing  alone,  defying  the  Democracy 
of  thirty-one  States,  rising f in  the  instinctive  love  of  a 
mother  superior  to  the  low  Christianity  of  the  present 
age,  and  writing  her  religion  and  her  heroism  in  the 
bloody  right  hand  that  gave  her  infant  back  to  God 
for  safe  keeping.  [Loud  applause.]  Any  man  might 
well  be  proud  to  share  the  color  of  that  mother  whose 
grave  some  future  Plutarch  or  Tacitus  will  find,  when 
he  calls  up  the  heroism  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

My  friend  Mr.  Nell  has  gathered  together,  in  a 
small  volume,  instances  enough  of  the  heroism  of  col- 
ored blood,  and  the  share  it  took  in  our  Revolution, 
and  yet  he  has  not  told  half  the  story.  I  commend 
his  book  to  the  care  and  patronage  of  every  man  who 
loves  the  colored  race.  And  not  only  to  buy  it,  —  that 
is  not  enough.  If  there  is  any  young  man  who  has  any 
literary  ambition,  let  him  fill  up  the  sketch;  let  him 
complete  the  picture  ;  let  him  go  sounding  along  the 
untrodden  fields  of  Revolutionary  anecdote,  and  gather 
up  every  fact-  touching  the  share  his  race  took  in  that 
struggle.  Why,  the  wealthiest  family  in  Boston,  — 
that  of  the  Lawrences,  —  in  their  own  family  history, 

1  A  colored  woman  who  threw  her  child  into  the  Ohio  River  rather 
than  to  have  it  carried  into  slavery. 


74  CRTSPUS    ATTUCKS. 

record  the  fact  that  the  father  of  Abbot  Lawrence  was 
the  captain  of  a  company  made  up  entirely  of  colored 
men  ;  and  when  once,  in  the  fierce  and  hot  valor  of 
a  forgetful  moment,  he  rushed  too  far  into  the  ranks 
of  the  enemy,  and  was  alone,  ready  to  be  made  a  pris- 
oner, he  looked  back  to  his  ranks  of  colored  men,  and 
they  charged  through  two  lines  of  the  enemy,  rescued 
their  captain,  and  made  it  possible  for  the  Lawrences 
to  exist.  [Applause.]  They  ought  to  be  grateful  - 
yes,  that  whole  wealthy  family  ought  to  be  grateful  to 
colored  courage  that  it  saved  their  own  father  from 
a  Jersey  ship-of-war,  and  enabled  him  to  take  his  share 
in  the  Revolutionary  struggle,  and  to  be  buried  in  the 
old  homestead  at  Groton.  And  doubtless,  if  your  lit- 
erary zeal  shall  follow  up  the  path  your  friend  Nell 
has  opened,  yon  will  find  scarcely  any  name  on  the 
whole  roll  of  Revolutionary  fame  that  does  not  owe 
more  or  less  to  colored  courage  and  co-operation.  I 
commend  it  to  your  care.  Never  forget  the  part  your 
race  took  in  the  great  struggle  ;  cherish,  preserve, 
illustrate  it.  Compel  the  white  man  to  write  your 
names,  not  as  they  have  written  them  in  Connecticut, 
at  the  bottom  of  the  rest,  with  a  line  between,  negro- 
pew  fashion,  but  make  them  write  them  on  the  same 
marble  and  in  the  same  line.  The  time  will  yet  come 
when  we  will,  as  Caleb  Gushing  says,  drag  this  Massa- 
chusetts Legislature  at  our  heels,  and  they  shall  pay 
for  a  monument  to  Attucks.  [Loud  cheers,  and  cries 
of  "  Good."]  It  will  be  but  the  magnanimous  atone- 
ment for  the  injury  and  forgetfulness  of  so  many  years. 
They  owe  it  to  him,  and  they  shall  yet  pay  it.  You  and 
I,  faithful  to  our  trust,  will  see  to  it.  Our  fathers  were 
honest  and  grateful  enough  to  bury  him  from  beneath 
these  very  walls.  John  Hancock  did  himself  the  honor, 
from  his  own  balcony  in  Beacon  Street,  to  give  that 


CRISPUS   ATTUCKS.  75 

banner  to  colored  men,  recognizing  them  as  citizens 
and  as  soldiers.  The  time  shall  come  when  the  flavor 
of  that  good  deed  shall  perfume  Beacon  Street,  and 
make  it  worthier  [cheers],  —  I  always  thought  that  I 
had  a  pride  in  being  born  in  it ;  now  I  know  the  reason. 
[Renewed  cheering.] 

Yes,  like  "  Old  Mortality,"  we  come  here  to-night  to 
make  the  monument  plainer,  to  scrape  off  the  moss  that 
has  gathered  over  it.  It  is  only  "  the  beginning  of  the 
end."  The  time  shall  come,  if  you,  young  men,  do  your 
duty,  when  the  part  your  ancestors  played,  when  the 
laurels  they  won,  when  the  deeds  they  performed  in 
our  Revolutionary  era,  shall  be  raked  up  from  forget- 
fulness.  I  will  tell  you  how.  Do  you  know  how  great- 
grandfathers get  remembered  ?  I  will  tell  you.  The 
world  is  very  forgetful,  — .  Republics  are  proverbially 
ungrateful.  You  must  not  expect  that  the  white  men 
will  wake  up  and  do  you  justice.  Oh,  no !  I  will  tell 
you  how  it  is  to  be  done.  We  are  very  fond  of  finding 
reasons  for  things  and  explaining  them  away.  If  we 
see  a  boy  very  bright,  with  great  genius,  we  are  fond 
of  saying,  "  Well,  we  knew  his  father  and  mother,  and 
they  were  very  bright  people."  Or,  if  we  see  a  grand- 
son very  famous,  we  say,  "  Well,  he  comes  of  a  good 
stock  ;  we  remember  his  grandfather,  he  could  do  this 
thing  or  the  other ! "  When  Theodore  Parker  came  into 
the  city  of  Boston,  and  made  the  boldest  pulpit  in  the 
city,  men  said,  "  It  is  all  right.  This  is  the  blood  that 
fired  the  first  musket  at  Lexington,  and  it  is  only  crop- 
ping out  in  a  new  place."  Now,  some  of  you  colored 
men,  Boston  colored  men,  go  you  to-morrow  and  show 
your  valor  in  the  field,  valor  in  life,  valor  in  education, 
valor  in  making  money,  valor  in  making  your  mark  in 
the  world, —  and  instantly  the  papers  will  begin  to  say, 
"  Oh,  yes ;  they  have  always  been  a  brave,  gallant  people  ! 


76  CRISPUS   ATTUCKS. 

Was  there  not  an  Attucks  in  '70  ?  By  the  by,  let  us  build 
him  a  monument."  You  must  remind  us  by  instances. 
You  must  not  come  to  us  and  argue  ;  that  is  not  the 
way  to  convince  us.  The  common  people  do  not  stop 
to  argue.  You  must  convince  us  by  a  life.  We  want 
another  Attucks  ;  and  I  will  conclude  by  showing  you 
that  you  have  another  Attucks.1  Here  is  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Higginson,  excusing  himself  for  not  coming ;  and 
with  this,  which  is  a  very  excellent  speech  in  itself,  1 
will  finish  mine. 

1  An  allusion  to  the  fact  stated  in  Mr.  Higginson's  letter,  "  that  the 
very  first  man  to  enter  the  court-house  door,  in  the  attempt  to  rescue 
Anthony  Burns,  was  not,  as  has  been  commonly  supposed,  a  white  man, 
but  a  colored  man." 


CAPITAL  PUNISHMENT. 


Plea  before  a  Committee  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  March 
16,  1855. 

I  HAVE  not  been  able,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  attend  any 
of  the  hearings  of  this  Committee,  and  therefore  I 
cannot  be  said  to  know  accurately  the  ground  taken  by 
those  who  have  supported  the  proposition  that  the  gal- 
lows should  be  retained  ;  but  I  presume  I  know  it  in 
general,  and  therefore,  a  general  reply  will  not  wander 
far  from  the  points  which  the  committee  would  like  to 
have  treated.  I  have  always  found  that  before  the 
House  of  Representatives  this  subject  had,  in  fact,  but 
two  points  of  difficulty,  and,  indeed,  one  was  of  far  more 
importance  to  the  committee  than  the  other.  The  first 
point  is,  the  authority  for  capital  punishment ;  and  the 
second,  the  necessity  or  expediency  of  preserving  it.  I 
will  say  a  few  words  on  both. 

In  the  first  place,  Mr.  Chairman,  what  is  the  object  of 
all  punishment,  in  a  civil  community  ?  Of  course,  it  is 
not  to  revenge  any  act  committed.  The  idea  of  revenge 
is  to  be  separated  from  the  idea  of  punishment,  when  we 
speak  of  capital  punishment,  or  any  other  punishment, 
in  civil  society.  Neither  can  it  be  said  that  punishment 
is  the  penalty  of  sin,  properly  speaking;  that  is  sin  in 
the  eye  of  God,  where  an  individual  —  a  conscious,  re- 
sponsible individual  —  commits  a  wrong  act,  with  a 
wrong  motive.  Society  has  nothing  to  do  with  motive  ; 
society  punishes  acts,  One  man,  for  instance,  may  com- 


78  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

mit  murder,  and  in  reality,  and  in  the  sight  of  God, 
may  not  commit  as  much  sin  as  another  person  who  has 
merely  stolen;  because  we  all  know  that  sin,  moral 
guilt,  is  made  up  of  two  elements, — the  light  that  the 
individual  had,  and  the  criminal  wish  that  he  had  to  vio- 
late that  light.  God  alone  can  know  what  light  a  man 
has  in  his  own  conscience.  Strictly  speaking,  therefore, 
the  word  punishment  ought  never  to  be  used  in  this  con- 
nection. Society  does  not,  in  fact,  punish  as  we  usually 
make  use  of  that  term.  Punishment  belongs  only  to 
that  Being  who  can  fathom  the  heart,  and  find  out 
motives. 

This  is  a  more  important  principle  than  it  at  first  ap- 
pears from  this  consideration.  Many  men  approach  this 
subject  with  the  idea  that  there  is  some  peculiar  reli- 
gious responsibility  connected  with  it.  Dr.  Cheever,  in 
his  work  on  capital  punishment,  has  a  leading  train  of 
thought  to  the  effect  that  "  the  land  is  stained  with 
blood,"  in  the  phrase  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  that 
society  has  got  something  to  do  to  free  the  nation  from 
the  guilt  of  blood ;  but  our  ideas  of  civil  government 
are  entirely  different  from  this.  There  are  two  objects 
that  society  has  in  inflicting  penalties,  —  that  is  the 
proper  word,  not  "  punishment."  According  to  Lord 
Brougham  in  his  letter  to  Lord  Lyndhurst  on  this  very 
topic,  these  objects  are,  —  firs^Jx)  prevent  the  individual 
offender  from  ever  repeating  his  offence;  and  jsecwicl, 
to  deter  others  from  imitating  his  offence.  The 
primary  object  of  all  government  is  protection,  —  pro- 
tection to  persons  and  property.  That  protection  is  to 
be  gained  in  two  ways,  —  by  taking  the  individual  mur- 
derer, or  the  individual  thief,  and  by  putting  him  to 
death,  or  shutting  him  up,  to  prevent  his  recommitting  his 
offence  ;  and  by  so  arranging  the  penalty  on  that  man 
as  to  deter  others  from  imitating  his  example. 


CAPITAL    PUNISHMENT.  T(-> 

In  that  definition,  Mr.  Chairman,  have  I  not  included 
the  whole  object  of  penalty  in  the  eye  of  civil  govern- 
ment ?  You  observe  that  this  must  be  the  whole  object. 
For  instance,  —  a  man  who  undertakes  to  commit  mur- 
der, but  does  not  do  it,  is  guilty  of  murder  in  the  eye  of 
God.  If  I  load^ajristol  anoMireit  ataman^^ndniss 
hiin,Iain,4*-H»tt*dei££^^  I  a 


I   am  not 

a  murderer  in  the  eye  of  society.  Society  looks-i*p0Tf~~~ 
the  act,  not  upon  the  intention  or  motive  of  the  individ- 
ual ;  and,  therefore,  only  that  Being  who  fathoms  mo- 
tives, who  lets  down  the  plummet  of  His  infinite  knowl- 
edge into  the  complex  machinery  of  the  human  heart, 
and  learns  how  much  good  has  been  resisted,  how  much 
education  has  been  smothered,  —  only  He  can  punish. 

If  I  am  right  in  this,  the  only  things  left  are  restraint 
of  the  specific  individual  culprit,  and  restraint  by  deter- 
ring imitators.  That  is  the  object  of  penalties.  Well, 
then,  we  come  to  the  penalty  of  the  gallows.  —  the  tak- 
ing away  of  life.  In  the  first  place,  —  to  look  at  it  ab- 
stractly, —  is  it  necessary  in  order  to  restrain  the  mur- 
derer, or  to  deter  others  from  imitating  him  ?  It  mani- 
festly is  not  necessary  in  order  to  restrain  the  murderer  ; 
because  society  is  now  so  settled  in  its  arrangements,  so 
perfectly  stereotyped  in  its  shape  and  form,  that  you  can 
put  a  man  between  four  walls  and  keep  him  there  his 
whole  life.  Massachusetts  can  build  prisons  strong 
enough  to  keep  a  man,  and  enact  statutes  strong  enough 
to  prevent  him  from  being  pardoned  out.  No  man  will 
pretend  before  this  Committee  that  that  part  of  the  object 
of  penalty  which  would  prevent  the  man  from  repeating 
his  offence  obliges  you  to  take  his  life.  You  can  shut 
him  up  just  as  securely  in  a  prison  as  in  a  grave.  It  is 
not  necessary,  then,  to  restrain  the  criminal  ;  nobody 
pretends  it. 

Is  it  necessary  for  the  simple  purpose  of  deterring 


80  CAPITAL    PUNISHMENT. 

others  from  like  offences  ?  Will  the  taking  of  the 
man's  life  deter  others  from  following  in  his  steps  ? 
That  is  the  only  question  that  remains. 

When  we  look  at  the  gallows  —  what  is  it  ?  It  is  the 
taking  of  human  life.  There  are  three  questions  which 
present  themselves  in  connection  with  this  subject : 
1.  Have  we  a  right  to  take  it  ?  2.  Are  we  obliged  to 
take  it.  3.  Does  it  do  any  good  to  take  it  ?  In  other 
words,  —  the  right,  the  obligation,  and  the  necessity. 

With  regard  to  the  matter  of  right.  If  the  Massachu- 
setts Declaration  of  Rights  is  of  any  authority  in  this 
hall,  if  the  first  page  of  your  Constitution  is  of  any  au- 
thority here,  —  then  it  would  be  hard  to  show  where  you 
get  the  power  to  take  life.  "  The  body  politic,"  says  the 
Preamble  to  the  Constitution,  "  is  formed  by  a  volun- 
tary association  of  individuals ;  it  is  a  social  compact  by 
which  the  whole  people  covenants  with  each  citizen,  and 
each  citizen  with  the  whole  people."  That  is  the  re- 
publican theory  of  government ;  it  is  the  theory  of  this 
country,  as  you  know,  ever  since  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence. It  is  a  compact  between  individuals  to  be 
governed  in  a  certain  form.  Society,  therefore,  can 
have  no  rights  higher  than  those  the  individual  has  to 
give  to  it.  If  you  will  read  the  Declaration  of  Rights  of 
the  Massachusetts  Constitution,  you  will  see  that  our 
form  of  government  is  a  partnership  of  the  individuals 
composing  the  body  politic,  and  of  course,  a  partner- 
ship cannot  have  any  property  except  what  the  individ- 
ual members  give  to  it.  Now  an  individual  man  has  no 
right  over  his  own  life,  —  suicide  is  sin.  If  government 
is  a  compact,  a  partnership  of  rights  which  we  individ- 
ually surrender,  where  do  you  get  the  right  to  take  life  ? 
The  parties  that  make  the  compact  have  not  got  it,  and 
therefore  they  cannot  give  it  to  the  government.  Your 
legislature,  according  to  that  Constitution,  has  no  rights 


CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT.  81 

except  what  the  people  have  given  them.  The  people 
have  no  right  to  take  their  own  lives,  and  of  course  they 
cannot  give  you  the  right  to  take  their  lives.  If  your 
Constitution  is  correct,  therefore,  you  have  no  right  to 
take  life.  I  do  not  say  the  Constitution  is  right.  I 
know  there  are  theories  which  repudiate  the  idea  of 
compact,  and  claim  that  government  derives  its  author- 
ity directly  from  God.  Your  Constitution  says  that 
government  is  a  "  compact "  among  the  people  ;  and  a 
government  founded  on  that  basis  cannot  have  the  right 
to  take  life,  unless  the  individual  has  the  right  to  take 
his  own, —  unless  suicide  is  justifiable.  The  reverend 
gentlemen  who  have  appeared  before  you  in  opposition  to 
the  petitioners,  would  not  allow  for  a  moment  that  I 
have  the  right  to  commit  suicide ;  but  if  I  have  not  the 
right  to  take  my  own  life,  how  can  I  give  that  right  to 
Governor  Gardner,  or  to  a  jury  of  twelve  men  ? 

Beccaria,  Dr.  Rush,  and  all  the  most  eminent  writers 
on  this  subject  deny  the  right  of  society  to  take  life,  on 
the  ground  that  it  conflicts  with  the  republican  form  of 
government.  These  gentlemen  escape  from  this  by 
throwing  overboard  the  whole  theory  of  American  so- 
ciety. They  say  society  is  not  a  compact.  They  upset 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  Massachusetts 
Constitution,  and  maintain  that  government  is  derived 
from  God  ;  and  in  that  way  they  get  the  idea  of  capital 
punishment  from  the  Bible  :  for  you  cannot  get  it  any 
where  else,  —  it  must  be  got  from  the  Bible,  if  got  at 
all.  Overthrowing  the  Massachusetts  Constitution, 
they  erect  you  into  a  government  by  the  ordinance  of 
God.  It  is  in  fact  the  old  divine  right  to  govern,  and 
having  introduced  that  theory  into  American  society, 
they  give  you  the  right  to  take  life.  And  when  they 
give  you  this  right,  they  give  it  to  you  in  a  Hebrew 
verse  of  the  Old  Testament,  which,  they  say,  not  only 


82  CAPITAL  PUNISHMENT. 

confers  the  right,  but  actually  enjoins  it  as  an  obliga- 
tion, "  blood  for  blood  !  " 

They  claim  that  this  question  lies  entirely  outside  of  the 
province  of  usual  legislation.  That  is  a  very  suspicious 
claim,  to  begin  with.  You  are  asked  to  give  your  support 
to  a  law  which  avowedly  transcends  your  Constitution, 
on  the  ground  that  it  belongs  to  the  theory  of  Christian- 
ity. But  who  says  this  is  a  Christian  government  ?  It 
recognizes  the  Jew,  the  Mohammedan,  or  anybody  else, 
as  a  voter  and  entitled  to  an  equality  of  right.  I  do  not 
say,  gentlemen,  that  the  spirit  of  Christianity  does  not 
permeate  its  laws ;  I  simply  say,  this  government  does 
not  recognize  Christianity  as  an  essential  characteristic  of 
its  component  parts. 

You  come  now  to  the  Bible.  You  come  now  to  this 
verse  of  the  Old  Testament ;  and  upon  this  verse  hangs 
the  whole  theory  of  government,  the  whole  theory  of 
this  legislation  on  capital  punishment.  I  want  you  to 
bear  in  mind  these  observations,  because  it  shows  you  that 
the  thing  claimed  stands  outside  of  the  Constitution, 
outside  of  the  whole  theory  of  American  government,  — 
it  is  peculiar,  essential,  unique.  We  come,  then,  to  that 
verse.  It  is  an  obligation,  they  say :  "  Whosoever 
sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed." 
Let  us  suppose,  gentlemen,  to  begin  with,  that  it  is  a 
command.  We  will  not  say  that  we  are  Christians  and 
not  Jews,  and  that  this  was  addressed,  in  the  first  place, 
to  Jews  and  not  to  Christians.  Who  can  show  that  this 
is  a  command  to  Christians  ?  It  is  a  command  to  the 
Jewish  nation,  so  far  as  we  know.  But  it  is  contended 
that  this  command  stands  behind  the  Jewish  nation,  and 
is  addressed  to  the  whole  race,  represented  by  Noah. 
Suppose  we  waive  aside  our  objection,  and  consider  it  as 
a  covenant  with  the  race,  through  Noah. 

If  this  is  a  covenant,  if  it  is  a  law  of  God,  if  it  is  ad- 


CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT.  83 

dressed  to  us  as  the  law  of  God, —  it  must  be  obeyed, 
fully,  entirely  obeyed;  no  man  lias  a  right  to  take  excep- 
tions to  it.  If  it  is  the  law  of  God,  Mr.  Chairman,  you 
and  I,  and  this  government,  and  every  individual  in  it 
must  obey  it  in  its  letter.  We  have  no  right  to  make 
changes  in  it.  If  we  have  a  right  to  make  changes  inil 
the  law  of  God,  how  much  change  may  we  make  a 
Change  it  a  half  ;  two  thirds  ?  No ;  the  rule  is,  you  cain 
not  change  it  a  tittle.  It  is  to  be  obeyed  ;  and  it  is  to 
be  obeyed  wholly;  it  is  to  be  obeyed  in  its  full  spirit,  to 
the  extent  of  it.  Is  not  that  proper  ?  The  opponents  of 
capital  punishment,  gentlemen,  are  perfectly  willing  to 
obey  this  statute,  with  the  gentlemen  who  support  the 
gallows,  if  they  will  obey  it  to  the  letter,  entirely.  How 
long  could  any  legislature  that  obeyed  that  command,  in 
its  full  spirit,  sit  in  any  Christian  country  ?  Let  us  see. 
In  the  first  place,  you  will  remark  that  this  is  but  a 
single  line  of  Hebrew  text.  If  you  will  look  into  our 
friend  Spear's  book,  or  Dr.  Cheever's  book,  or  any  book 
on  this  subject,  on  either  side,  you  will  find  that  there 
are  as  many  as  twelve  different  interpretations  of  it.  No 
two  of  the  great  lights  of  Oriental  learning  and  the 
Hebrew  language  have  been  able  to  agree  upon  an  inter- 
pretation. One  says  that  it  means  one  thing,  and  another, 
another  thing  ;  and  from  Calvin  and  Luther  down  to  our 
own  day,  there  has  been  no  unanimous  agreement  among 
scholars  as  to  the  meaning  of  this  sentence.  Is  it  not 
rather  singular,  gentlemen,  that  you  should  be  asked  to 
upset  the  whole  theory  of  the  American  Constitution,  to 
support  a  law  which  it  is  confessed  transcends  the 
American  idea  of  the  power  of  government,  that  you 
should  be  asked  to  take  a  right  —  one  of  the  most  doubt- 
ful ever  exercised,  even  if  it  should  appear  to  have  ex- 
isted in  any  human  government  —  on  the  faith  of  a  single 
line  of  a  dead  language,  three  thousand  years  old,  about 


84  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

the  meaning  of  which  no  two  scholars  agree  ?  If  God 
meant  to  issue  a  command  to  last  for  all  time,  —  a  com- 
mand which  was  so  imperative  that  all  governments,  in 
all  circumstances,  were  to  be  obliged  to  obey  it,  —  would 
He  not  have  stated  it  so  that  its  meaning  might  be  plainly 
understood  ?  Some  say  it  means  "  whatsoever."  Dr. 
Kraitsir,  one  of  the  most  eminent  living  philologists  in 
the  world,  undertook  to  show  in  his  lectures,  only  two 
years  ago,  that  it  only  forbids  cannibalism,  —  the  eating 
of  men  ;  and  perhaps,  on  a  question  of  language,  there  is 
no  single  name  in  all  Christendom  that  has  the  weight 
of  Dr.  Kraitsir  at  the  present  moment. 

"  Whosoever  sheds  man's  blood,  his  blood  shall  be 
shed."  That  is  the  whole  sentence ;  "  by  man  "  is  an 
interpolation.  That  is  the  whole  literal  interpretation 
of  the  words  ;  we  have  got  to  make  out  the  rest.  Some 
say  it  is  a  prophecy,  "  Whosoever  taketli  the  sword, 
shall  perish  by  the  sword ; "  and  so  of  all  the  different 
meanings.  I  do  not  go  into  them,  because  it  is  utterly 
immaterial  to  my  argument  which  is  the  best.  The 
simple  fact  that  the  most  eminent  Oriental  scholars  have 
never  been  able  to  agree  upon  an  interpretation,  is 
enough  for  me.  Is  it  not  singular,  I  say,  that  so  tran- 
scendent an  act  of  legislation  as  "breaking  into  the 
bloody  house  of  life,"  as  Shakspeare  writes,  —  the  taking 
of  human  life,  —  should  be  left  to  hang  on  a  doubtful 
sentence,  in  a  dead  language,  more  than  three  thousand 
years  old  ?  Why,  gentlemen,  if  a  doctrine  is  of  impor- 
tance in  the  Bible,  it  is  spread  over  many  pages  ; 
it  shines  out  in  parable ;  it  is  put  prominently 
forward  in  exhortation ;  it  is  given  in  one  way  and 
then  in  another ;  first  by  one  writer  and  then  by 
another, —  but  here  is  this  single  sentence,  nothing 
else ;  we  have  got  to  hang  on  this ;  we  cannot  find  it 
anywhere  else.  Our  Saviour  says,  reiterating  the  great 


CAPITAL    PUNISHMENT.  85 

command,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill ;"  but  here  is  an  excep- 
tion, according  to  this  theory.  Get  rid  of  this  sentence, 
and  there  is  no  trouble  anywhere  else  in  the  Bible. 
Now,  I  say,  that  if  that  was  a  command  to  control  all 
governments,  to  trample  under  foot  all  circumstances, 
it  would  be  natural  to  conclude  that  God  would  have 
expressed  it  more  clearly. 

But,  leaving  this  point,  to  whom  is  this  command  ad- 
dressed ?  Is  it  to  governments  ?  No,  gentlemen,  it  is 
addressed  to  individuals.  When  God  spoke  to  Noah, 
there  was  no  government.  The  address  was  to  individ- 
uals, and  it  was  so  interpreted  for  more  than  fifteen  hun- 
dred years.  It  was  addressed  to  each  individual  man  ; 
and  when  the  Jews  were  organized  into  a  nation,  they 
found  this  original  command,  according  to  this  interpre- 
tation, resting  on  each  man,  to  kill  whoever  had  killed 
his  nearest  relative.  You  know  that  all  through  the 
Pentateuch  you  have  frequent  references  to  the  old 
right,  before  government  existed,  of  each  man  to  kill 
the  person  who  had  taken  the  life  of  his  nearest  of  kin. 
This  command  then  is  addressed  to  individuals^  —  it  is 
a  command  to  the  nearest  of  kin  to  kill  whoever  slays 
his  relative.  If  this  is  a  command  of  God,  it  is  addressed 
to  you  and  to  me.  Suppose  that  Mr.  Rufus  Choate,  or 
some  other  eminent  lawyer,  should  procure  the  acquittal 
of  a  murderer,  and  that  the  brother  of  the  person  murdered 
should  seek  out  and  shoot  down  the  murderer;  and  when 
he  is  brought  before  the  court  for  sentence,  suppose  that 
he  should  say  to  the  judge :  "  '  Whosoever  shcddeth 
man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed.'  Every 
pulpit  in  Massachusetts  interprets  that  as  a  command  of 
God.  I  believe  that  it  is  a  command  of  God  addressed 
to  individuals.  God  has  never  taken  it  back.  It  is  ad- 
dressed to  me,  then,  just  as  much  as  to  Noah  ;  there  is 
no  time  with  the  Almighty.  He  is  speaking  that  sen- 


86  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

tence  now  just  as  much  as  in  the  time  of  Noah.  You 
say  the  jury  had  acquitted  the  man;  but  what  are  the 
jury  to  me  ?  I  know  he  was  guilty.  God's  command 
to  me  is  that  I  should  kill  him ;  I  have  killed  him. 
Take  my  life  if  you  dare  !  You  are  disobeying  the  divine 
commandment ! "  Suppose  he  should  say  this,  how 
would  you  meet  it  ?  Where  could  you  impeach  his  ar- 
gument upon  the  doctrine  maintained  here  ? 

That  is  a  command  addressed  to  every  individual. 
There  was  no  sheriff  then ;  no  county  courts ;  no  gov- 
ernment ;  no  legislation.  There  were  but  six  or  seven 
men  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  God  promulgated  a 
law.  It  was  addressed  to  every  human  being,  and  it 
was  to  be  obeyed.  It  is  universally  recognized  in  the 
Old  Testament  in  the  sense  I  have  stated,  and  it  was  ex- 
ercised in  that  sense  for  fifteen  hundred  years.  Where 
is  the  exception,  gentlemen,  to  that  ?  If  the  gentlemen 
who  have  appeared  before  you  against  the  abolition  of 
the  death  penalty  will  stand  on  that  statute,  so  will  we. 
Let  us  see  what  sort  of  a  government  you  will  produce. 
Whenever  a  man  has  taken  life,  the  nearest  of  kin  of 
the  murdered  person  will  avenge  him,  according  to  his 
own  idea,  and  government  has  no  right  to  interfere. 
"  Whosoever  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his 
blood  be  shed."  Not  "  whosoever  means  to  shed  ;"  not 
"  whosoever  maliciously  sheddeth  ;  "  "  sheddeth  with 
malice  aforethought,  malice  prepense  ; "  —  but "  whosoever 
sheddeth."  Now  we  make  a  distinction,  —  we  say  the 
man  who  kills  in  hot  blood,  or  unawares,  is  guilty  only 
of  manslaughter ;  we  must  have  malice  aforethought  to 
constitute  the  crime  of  murder.  We  draw  the  line ;  in 
the  time  of  Noah  it  was  not  drawn.  Is  this  legislature 
ready  to  obey  this  statute,  and  annul  the  distinction  be- 
tween murder  and  manslaughter  ?  Is  it  ready  to  make 
it  the  law  of  the  Commonwealth,  that  whosoever  takes 


CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT.  87 

life,  no  matter  how,  shall  be  hanged  by  the  neck  until  he 
is  dead  ? 

Do  not  say  I  am  quibbling.  I  will  show  you  I  am  not. 
Look  in  the  thirty-fifth  of  Numbers,  and  you  will  observe 
that  Moses  makes  a  peculiar  institution.  He  sets  apart 
six  "  cities  of  refuge."  What  are  they  for  ?  Whoever 
commits  murder  with  malice  prepense,  with  design,  is  to 
be  killed.  Whoever  smites  a  man  unawares,  that  he  die, 
he  has  a  right  to  fly  into  a  city  of  refuge,  and  stay  there 
a  year  and  a  day,  or  until  the  death  of  the  High  Priest ; 
and  provided  he  stays  there  during  that  period,  the  near- 
est of  kin  cannot  kill  him.  "  These  six  cities  shall  be 
a  refuge,  both  for  the  children  of  Israel,  and  for  the 
stranger,  and  for  the  sojourner  among  them ;  that  every 
one  that  killeth  any  person  unawares  may  flee  thither." 
(Num.  xxxv.  15.)  That  was  the  only  restraint  which 
Moses  dared  to  put  upon  the  right  of  the  nearest  of  kin 
to  take  the  life  of  anybody  who  had  killed  his  relative, 
whether  he  took  it  by  design  or  not.  The  murderer, 
you  will  observe,  by  the  fifth  chapter  of  Numbers,  is  to 
be  put  to  death,  whether  he  gets  to  the  city  of  refuge  or 
not ;  but  the  man  who  has  committed  manslaughter  is 
not  to  be  killed,  provided  he  stay  in  the  city  of  refuge  a 
year  and  a  day.  Now,  what  does  that  show  ?  It  shows 
two  things,  —  in  the  first  place,  that,  prior  to  Moses' 
making  that  statute  in  Numbers,  the  nearest  of  kin  took 
the  life  of  anybody  who  killed  his  relative ;  and  in  the 
second  place,  it  shows,  what  I  have  stated  to  you,  that 
there  is  no  distinction  in  this  passage  between  murder 
and  manslaughter.  Moses  institutes  a  distinction,  and 
says  that  if  a  man  has  committed  homicide,  —  has  killed 
a  man  unawares,  —  and  shall  go  to  a  city  of  refuge,  and 
shall  stay  in  this  city  a  year  and  a  day,  he  is  not  to  be 
punished.  The  two  statutes  interpret  each  other.  That 
second  statute,  which  makes  a  limitation  on  the  first, 


88  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

shows  what  the  first  meant,  and  shows  that  Moses 
thought  that,  according  to  this  passage  in  Genesis,  the 
blood  of  the  murderer  (whether  the  act  were  committed 
with  malice  aforethought  or  not)  should  be  taken  by 
the  nearest  of  kin  of  the  murdered  person.  Gentlemen, 
that  is  what  a  lawyer  would  call  an  interpretation  from 
contemporaneous  practice.  Here  is  the  practice  of  fif- 
teen hundred  years  under  that  statute,  and  the  man  who 
commits  murder,  with  aforethought  or  unawares,  is  to 
be  slain  by  the  nearest  of  kin  of  the  murdered  man.  If 
that  was  the  original  command,  obey  it.  We  have  only 
the  statute  of  Genesis  ;  we  have  no  thirty-fifth  chapter  of 
Numbers,  with  its  limitation,  —  that  was  addressed  to 
the  Jews.  We  have  no  "  cities  of  refuge."  A  man  can- 
not go  to  Worcester  or  Salem,  and  stay  there  a  year,  by 
way  of  punishment,  or  atonement  for  his  offence.  We 
have  not  the  exception  ;  we  have  only  the  statute. 

Now,  gentlemen,  are  the  reverend  gentlemen  willing 
to  say  that  you  shall  annul  the  distinction  between  mur- 
der and  manslaughter  in  the  Commonwealth  of  Massa- 
chusetts,—  that  if  a  man  kills  another  unintentionally, 
without  malice,  he  shall  be  punished  with  death,  under 
the  covenant  with  Noah  ?  If  they  will  not,  what  right 
have  they  to  come  here  and  tell  you  to  obey  that 
statute  ?  If  that  is  a  statute  of  God,  what  right  have 
they  to  make  exceptions  ? 

Dr.  Cheever  avoids  this  dilemma,  and  how  ?  He 
allows  that  this  command  was  addressed  to  individuals. 
He  allows  that  it  cannot  be  obeyed  by  individuals  now, 
—  that  it  would  derange  all  society,  upset  all  govern- 
ment ;  and  what  does  he  say  ?  He  says,  we  cannot 
obey  the  statute  as  it  was  originally  given ;  because  there 
is  such  an  entire  change  of  circumstances  since  the  time  of 
Noah.  Indeed  !  But  Dr.  Cheever  can  interpolate  "  cir- 
cumstances "  into  the  law  of  God  ;  and  if  he  can,  cannot 


CAPITAL    PUNISHMENT.  89 

we  ?  If  you  are  going  to  open  a  door  in  the  statute  for 
the  great  procession  of  circumstances  in  a  period  of 
nineteen  centuries  to  pass  through,  can  you  not  open  it 
wide  enough  to  carry  the  gallows  out  ?  If  "  circum- 
stances" have  changed  so  much  since  this  command 
was  delivered,  that  it  is  not  safe  for  an  individual  to  kill 
the  murderer,  perhaps  they  have  changed  so  much  that 
you  and  I  can  get  rid  of  the  gallows  altogether. 

Suppose  you  had  made  a  statute  for  the  Common- 
wealth of  Massachusetts  ;  suppose  you  had  passed  the 
Maine  Liquor  Law,  and  six  months  afterwards  the 
authorities  in  some  town  in  the  Commonwealth  should 
refuse  to  execute  it,  should  make  exceptions  to  it, 
and  when  they  were  remonstrated  with  they  should  say, 
"  Yes,  certainly,  those  were  the  circumstances  in  March, 
but  in  November  they  have  changed,  and  we  are  going 
to  change  the  statute,  the  legislature  would  undoubtedly 
like  to  have  it  done,"  —  what  would  you  think  of  their 
reasoning? 

If  this  is  a  statute  at  all,  it  is  a  statute  until  God 
alters  it.  If  one  man  has  a  right  to  say  that  "  circum- 
stances "  have  dispensed  with  one  half  of  it,  another  indi- 
vidual has  a  right  to  say  that  "  circumstances  "  have 
dispensed  with  it  altogether.  Mr.  Jefferson,  you  know, 
cut  out  all  the  parts  of  the  New  Testament  to  which 
he  objected,  and  said  of  the  remainder,  "  This  is  my 
New  Testament."  There  was  no  objection  to  it,  except 
that  different  people  might  take  out  different  parts,  and 
there  would  be  no  New  Testament  left.  Just  so  with 
Dr.  Chcever.  "  Circumstances  "  have  not  dispensed  with 
the  statute,  "Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God," 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  ; "  none  of  the  ten  com- 
mandments are  dispensed  with,  —  how  is  it  that  u  cir- 
cumstances" have  dispensed  with  one  half  of  this 
statute  ? 


90  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

In  the  third  place,  gentlemen,  it  is  a  singular  fact, 
that  if  this  be  the  law,  "  Whosoever  sheddeth  man's  blood, 
by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed,"  it  has  never  been 
obeyed.  If  this  be  the  meaning  of  the  statute,  that 
every  civil  government  that  exists  is  bound  to  kill  every 
human  being  who  has  taken  life,  it  has  never  been 
obeyed.  It  is  a  strong  argument  against  that  interpre- 
tation, that  practice  has  never  conformed  to  it.  Moses 
took  the  life  of  an  Egyptian;  God  did  not  order  him 
to  be  killed.  According  to  this  statute,  Moses  ought 
to  have  been  killed.  David  killed  Uriah  ;  David  was 
not  killed.  So  you  can  find  in  various  parts  of  the  Old 
Testament,  accounts  of  several  ancient  worthies  who  took 
life,  —  took  it,  too,  in  a  way  that  in  modern  society 
would  subject  them  to  punishment;  yet  they  were  not 
punished,  though,  according  to  this  statute,  they  ought 
to  have  been  put  to  death. 

Then  look  at  another  point.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a 
civil  government  that  did  not  locate  in  some  portion  of 
its  arrangements  the  pardoning  power  ?  Did  you  ever 
hear  of  a  government  that  did  not  give  either  the  king, 
or  the  legislature,  or  the  governor,  or  the  council,  or 
somebody,  the  pardoning  power  ?  If  a  jury  shall  con- 
demn a  man  to  death,  the  governor  may  interpose  and 
save  his  life.  Where  does  he  get  this  power  under 
this  statute  ?  God  does  not  say,  "  Whosoever  sheddeth 
man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed,  provided 
the  governor  does  not  pardon  him,"  —  that  proviso  is 
not  there.  If  this  is  a  statute  of  the  most  high  God,  you 
have  got  to  obey  it,  obey  it  literally  ;  and  every  man 
who  is  convicted  of  homicide  is  to  be  punished  capitally. 
No  considerations  of  mercy,  no  pity  for  his  family,  no 
consideration  of  darkness  of  mind,  his  want  of  education, 
ought  to  make  him  a  fit  subject  for  pardon.  There  is 
no  proviso  for  pardon  in  this  statute  ;  what  right,  then, 


CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT.  91 

lias  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  to  exercise  such  a 
power  on  the  theory  of  these  gentlemen? 

You  perceive  the  force  of  my  argument,  gentlemen  of 
the  Committee.  The  upholders  of  capital  punishment 
say  that  inside  of  this  book  there  is  a  command  to 
keep  up  the  gallows.  We  respectfully  reply :  Take  the 
statute  in  this  book ;  construe  it  as  you  would  any 
other  law,  and  obey  it,  —  and  if  you  will  obey  it  in 
that  way,  we  are  willing  the  government  shall  try  the 
experiment.  But  we  are  not  willing  that  anybody 
should  take  out  as  much  as  he  pleases,  and  leave  the 
rest  as  binding  upon  us.  If  this  is  a  law  of  God, 
u  Whosoever  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall 
his  blood  be  shed,"  —  if  that  is  the  whole  of  it, —  you 
have  no  right  to  give  Governor  Gardner  the  pardoning 
power,  because  God  does  not  recognize  that  power. 
There  was  an  old  lawyer  who  used  to  say  that  he  could 
make  a  flaw  in  any  statute  large  enough  to  drive  a 
coach  through.  How  large  a  flaw  must  you  make  in 
this  statute  before  you  can  get  modern  government 
under  it  ?  If  it  is  a  statute,  it  means  all  I  have  said ; 
if  it  is  not  a  statute,  it  means  nothing.  You  are  to 
choose  between  one  horn  of  the  dilemma  or  another. 
If  you  want  a  government  based  on  Noah,  take  it ;  but 
don't  throw  it  in  our  faces  when  we  undertake  to  erect 
a  government  on  the  principles  of  modern  experience, 
that  we  are  disobeying  a  divine  command  in  its  full 
letter  and  spirit.  Do  not  throw  it  in  our  faces  for  a 
single  item,  and  then  refuse  to  conform  to  it  when  it 
goes  against  yourselves.  Then,  again,  if  this  verse  is  a 
binding  statute,  all  the  verses  are.  Here  is  the  cove- 
nant with  Noah,  and  this  is  one  of  the  articles  of  that 
covenant,  "  But  flesh,  with  the  life  thereof,  which  is 
the  blood  thereof,  shall  ye  not  eat."  (Gen.  ix.  4.)  This 
has  always  been  interpreted  to  prescribe  a  certain 


92  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

method  of  killing  meat  to  be  eaten.  Even  at  this  day, 
the  Jews  of  the  city  of  New  York  will  not  buy  meat  in 
the  common  markets  of  the  city,  because  they  think  it 
transcends  that  command, —  that  it  is  not  properly 
blooded.  They  obey  that  law  to  the  very  letter.  Did 
you  ever  hear  of  a  Christian,  who  comes  here  with  the 
sixth  verse  of  this  chapter  written  all  over  him,  and 
maintains  that  God  commands  you  to  hang,  —  did  you 
ever  know  that  he  made  any  particular  inquiries  in  the 
market  as  to  whether  he  was  obeying  the  fourth  verse  ? 
No,  gentlemen,  he  is  a  Jew  as  "to  the  gallows;  he  is 
a  Christian  as  to  his  pork. 

But  that  fourth  verse  is  a  more  important  one  than 
the  sixth,  after  all.  If  you  turn  over  to  that  chapter  in 
Acts,  where  the  Apostles  give  their  general  directions  to 
Christians,  you  will  see  that  they  reiterate  the  fourth 
verse  :  "  For  it  seemed  good  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to 
us,  to  lay  upon  you  no  greater  burden  than  these  neces- 
sary things :  that  ye  abstain  from  meats  offered  to 
idols,  and  from  blood,  and  from  things  strangled"  etc. 
(Acts  xv.  28,  29.)  That  command  of  the  fourth  verse 
has  been  reiterated,  but  not  the  sixth.  The  Apostle  did 
not  say,  when  they  were  making  that  general  law  for  all 
Christendom,  "  It  seemed  good  to  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
to  us  to  command  you  that  you  obey  this  statute : 
4  Whosoever  sheddeth  man's  blood,-  by  man  shall  his 
blood  be  shed.'  "  They  were  yet  to  be  particular  how 
their  meat  was  killed ;  that  has  been  reiterated,  but 
no  Christian  obeys  it ;  but  this  sixth  verse  has  never 
been  reiterated,  yet  it  is  so  important,  according  to  these 
gentlemen,  that  if  you  should  dare  to  disobey  it,  the 
Commonwealth  would  go  to  pieces !  If  this  is  a  cove- 
nant, one  part  is  just  as  obligatory  as  another ;  yet  you 
would  obey  the  sixth  verse,  and  set  at  nought  the 
fourth!  Suppose  the  Supreme  Court  should  say  of  a 


CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT.  93 

law  passed  by  this  legislature,  "  It  is  all  Constitutional 
we  admit ;  but  we  shall  obey  one  half  of  it,  and  not  the 
other."  Suppose  an  individual  should  say  so,  —  what 
should  you  think  of  it  ? 

What  results  from  these  considerations  ?  Why,  this 
results, —  that  nobody  can  obey  that  statute  at  the  present 
moment,  and  no  civil  government  does  ;  and  the  govern- 
ment that  should  undertake  to  do  it  for  one  hour,  would 
be  hurled  into  oblivion  the  next,  by  the  aroused  indigna- 
tion of  the  nineteenth  century.  Constitute  yourselves  a 
government ;  make  no  distinction  between  manslaughter 
and  murder ;  declare  that  the  individual  shall  have 
the  right  to  take  the  life  of  the  person  who  kills  his 
nearest  relative ;  give  the  governor  no  right  to 
pardon, —  and  see  how  long  such  a  government  would 
stand.  And  yet  I  contend  that  no  man  who  interprets 
that  statute  by  the  common  rules  of  evidence  and  con- 
temporary practice,  can  find  any  of  the  merciful  provi- 
sions of  modern  government  in  it;  I  have  shown  you 
what  that  statute  was,  as  practised  for  fifteen  hundred 
years ;  and  Moses  himself  did  not  dare  to  say  that  the 
nearest  of  kin  should  not  kill  the  man  who  had  committed 
manslaughter.  He  instituted  "  cities  of  refuge,"  where 
the  individual  offender  should  be  safe ;  but  if  he  left 
the  city,  he  was  liable  to  be  killed.  I  contend,  gentle- 
men, that  in  this  issue  between  the  parties,  it  is  we  who 
are  upholding  the  Old  Testament,  riot  those  who  defend 
the  gallows.  We  say,  God  did  not  mean  to  prescribe  a 
law  for  civil  government  in  all  time,  —  that  was  not  his 
object ;  or,  if  he  did,  this  was  permissive  merely,  you 
may  take  life,  if  you  wish  to. 

This  is  my  proposition,  gentlemen  :  Grant  that  to  be 
a  statute ;  if  it  is  a  statute,  interpret  it  like  any  other 
statute ;  and  when  you  have  done  that,  then  we  will  say 


94  CAPITAL    PUNISHMENT. 

these  gentlemen  are  sincere  and  consistent,  if  they  sup- 
port and  obey  it.  But  until  they  do,  we  are  not  willing 
to  have  them  interpolate  as  much  as  they  choose  into  it, 
and  then  require  us  to  obey  it.  If  you  will  show  me  a 
man  who  rigidly  obeys  the  other  verses  of  the  covenant, 
then  I  will  show  you  a  man  who  really  supports  the 
gallows  because  he  thinks  the  sixth  verse  commands 
it ;  but  until  you  do,  I  shall  think  the  opponents  of  the 
abolition  of  the  death  penalty  are  influenced  by  other 
motives  than  those  which  appear. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  shall  leave  this  subject  in  a 
moment ;  but  allow  me  to  say  to  you,  that  this  statute 
is  represented  as  a  warrant  from  Almighty  God,  com- 
manding all  governments,  for  all  time,  to  inflict  the 
penalty  of  death  upon  every  man  who  takes  life.  There 
is  only  this  single  verse,  in  language  of  an  uncertain 
tenor,  and  it  has  all  the  difficulties  about  it  1  have 
named.  I  ask  you,  in  all  sincerity,  if  any  county 
sheriff  would  hang  one  man  on  a  writ  as  ambiguous 
as  that  ?  You  know  he  would  not ;  and  yet  govern- 
ments are  to  hang  to  all  time,  and  thousands  are  to 
die,  upon  the  authority  of  a  statute  so  uncertain  in  its 
meaning  that  no  sheriff  would  hang  an  individual  man 
on  a  precept  so  equivocal,  and  so  much  surrounded 
with  difficulties !  If  men  are  to  come  here  and  propound 
it  as  a  statute  sounding  down  to  us  from  Sinai,  and 
before  Sinai,  then  it  is  a  statute  that  we  must  put  our 
hands  on  our  lips,  and  our  lips  in  the  dust,  and  obey 
to  the  letter.  We  have  no  right  to  reject  one  word 
and  take  the  next ;  there  is  no  trifling  to  be  done  with 
it. 

Gentlemen,  we  have  now  dismissed  the  subject  of 
obligation.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say,  after  this,  that  I  do 
not  believe  in  the  obligation.  If  society  can  get  permis- 
sion to  take  life  from  this  text,  it  is  the  most  that  it  can 


CAPITAL    PUNISHMENT.  95 

get ;  it  is  no  command,  no  continuing  command.  But, 
mark  you,  even  that  permission  your  Constitution  does 
not  allow  you  to  use  !  Your  Constitution  does  not  even 
recognize  it  as  a  permission  ;  because,  if  it  is,  it  is  a  per- 
mission to  commit  suicide.  You  have  got  to  upset  the 
American  idea  of  government  before  you  can  even  exer- 
cise it  as  a  permission.  Mr.  Rantoul,  in  one  of  his  ex- 
ceedingly able  reports  on  this  subject,  fourteen  years 
ago,  placed  this  before  the  legislature  in  the  most  un- 
answerable light.  You  must  argue  down  the  American 
idea  of  government  before  you  can  put  down  the  argu- 
ment which  forbids  the  taking  of  human  life.  There 
is  great  difficulty  here.  You  have  got  to  ignore  the 
American  theory  and  American  history.  You  have  got 
to  say  of  that  Declaration  of  Rights, "  It  is  a  lie  !  There 
is  something  deeper  than  compact.  We  do  not  sit  under 
a  compact.  We  sit  under  an  arrangement  which  God 
limits, — the  height  and  depth  and  breadth  of  which 
He  has  denned,  not  the  Constitution."  This  is  not  the 
republican  theory  of  government,  gentlemen ;  but  I 
have  no  quarrel  with  it,  —  it  may  be  so.  But  you  sit  here 
under  the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  and  if  that 
Constitution  is  right,  you  have  got  no  powers  except 
what  the  people  give  you.  When,  gentlemen,  did  the 
law  recognize  that  I  have  the  right  to  take  my  own  life  ? 
Never.  Then,  under  your  idea  of  compact,  you  have  no 
right  to  take  my  life.  If  your  Constitution  is  a  sound, 
logical  instrument,  the  very  first  statute  that  hung  a 
man  on  the  gallows  was  a  violation  of  the  Constitution 
of  Massachusetts ;  for  it  undertook  to  assume  over  that 
man's  life  a  power  which  he  did  not  himself  possess,  and 
which  he  could  not,  therefore,  delegate  to  the  State ; 
and  the  Constitution  says  that  the  government  could 
have  no  right  except  what  that  man  gave  it,  —  u  The  body 
politic  is  formed  by  a  voluntary  association  of  indivi- 


96          ,  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

duals  ;  it  is  a  social  compact  by  which  the  whole  people 
covenants  with  each  citizen,  and  each  citizen  with  the 
whole  people."  Now,  will  any  man  undertake  to  show 
me  how  any  government  founded  upon  that  as  its  corner- 
stone can  claim  the  right  to  take  life,  unless  the  individ- 
ual has  a  right  to  take  his  own  life,  —  unless  suicide 
be  justifiable  ?  The  defenders  of  the  gallows  all  feel  the 
necessity  of  meeting  this  objection,  and  they  uniformly 
do  it  by  rejecting  the  idea  of  compact.  They  claim  that 
government  is  something  else,  —  that  you  get  your  rights 
somewhere  else  than  from  a  compact.  Dr.  Cheever  and 
other  writers  on  the  same  side  undertake  to  say  that 
this  idea  of  compact  is  all  a  mistake ;  that  it  was  de- 
rived from  the  French  infidelity  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. They  ignore  it  entirely,  and  they  have  a  right  to, 
for  they  are  only  writing  books.  But  you  cannot ;  for 
you  are  sitting  here  as  a  legislature,  and  must  respect 
the  Constitution  you  have  sworn  to  support. 

Let  us  look  at  another  argument  of  Dr.  Cheever.  He 
says  society  gets  the  right  to  take  life  as  the  individual 
gets  the  right  of  self-defence.  What  is  the  principle  of 
the  law  ?  The  principle  of  the  law  is  this  :  If  a  man  is 
going  to  take  your  life,  you  have  no  right  to  take  his 
immediately  ;  you  must  retreat  to  the  wall.  The  rule  of 
the  common  law  says :  You  must  retreat  until  you  can 
retreat  no  farther ;  and  then,  when  you  must  either  die 
or  kill  him,  you  may  kill  him  ;  but  if  you  kill  him  at 
once,  without  retreating  as  far  as  you  can,  you  are  guilty 
of  manslaughter.  Now,  if  Dr.  Cheever  is  going  to  get 
the  right  from  this  principle  just  alluded  to,  then  society 
is  bound  to  show,  not  that  taking  life  is  a  good  thing, 
but  that  it  is  an  absolutely  necessary  thing.  Society  is 
bound  to  show  that,  in  conformity  with  this  rule,  she  has 
retreated  to  the  wall,  —  that  is,  done  everything  she  could 
before  taking  the  life  of  the  murderer.  Society  has  got 


CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT.  97 

to  show,  if  Dr.  Cheever's  theory  is  correct,  that,  like  the 
individual,  before  she  raised  her  hand,  she  retreated  as 
far  as  she  could,  —  she  ran  and  hid  herself,  got  out  of 
the  way,  and  when  she  could  do  nothing  else,  then  she 
took  the  life  of  the  individual.  But  now,  how  is  it  ? 
Who  are  the  men  that  are  hung  ?  Are  they  the  rich,  the 
educated,  the  men  that  are  cared  for  by  society  ?  No, 
that  is  not  the  class  that  supplies  the  harvest  for  the  gal- 
lows. The  harvest  of  the  gallows  is  reaped  from  the 
poor,  the  ignorant,  the  friendless,  —  the  men  who,  in  the 
touching  language  of  Charles  Lamb,  "  are  never  brought 
up,  but  dragged  up ; "  who  never  knew  what  it  was  to 
have  a  mother,  to  have  education,  moral  restraint.  They 
have  been  left  on  the  highways,  vicious,  drunken,  neg- 
lected. Society  cast  them  off.  She  never  extended  over 
them  a  single  gentle  care  ;  but  the  first  time  this  crop 
of  human  passion,  the  growth  of  which  she  never 
checked,  manifests  itself,  —  the  first  time  that  ill-regu- 
lated being  puts  forth  his  hand  to  do  an  act  of  violence, 
society  puts  forth  her  hand  to  his  throat,  and  strangles 
him !  Has  society  done  her  duty  ?  Could  the  intelli- 
gence, the  moral  sense,  and  the  religion  of  Massachu- 
setts go  up  and  stand  by  the  side  of  that  poor  unfortunate 
negro  who  was  the  last  man  executed  in  this  Common- 
wealth, and  say  that  they  had  done  their  duty  by  him  ? 
He  had  passed  his  life  in  scenes  of  vice  ;  he  had 
never  known  what  it  was  to  have  a  human  being  speak 
to  him  in  a  tone  of  sympathy.  Had  society  done  her 
duty  ?  Had  she  retreated  to  the  wall  ?  He  never  landed 
in  our  city  but  the  harpies  of  licentiousness  and  drink 
beset  him,  and  the  churches  never  rose  up  in  their 
majesty  to  forbid  it.  Steeped  to  the  lips  in  vice  for  thirty 
years,  when  society  found  him  guilty  of  an  act  of  vio- 
lence, the  natural  result  of  such  a  life,  did  society  take 
him  and  say,  "  God  gave  this  man  to  me  an  inno- 

1 


98  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

cent  soul,  and  I  have  let  him  grow  up  into  this  monster, 
and  now  I  will  take  him  and  restrain  him ;  I  will  throw 
around  him  moral  influences,  and  see  if  I  cannot  make 
a  human  being  of  him  ? "  Did  society  retreat  to  the 
wall  ?  Did  she  try  to  save  that  man  ?  No ;  she  in- 
flicted on  him  the  severest  punishment,  —  she  took  away 
his  life.  "  Society  is  an  instrument  of  good,"  said  one  of 
your  members  a  few  days  ago.  Then  she  is  bound  to 
educate  the  man  thrown  into  her  hands. 

This  is  a  very  broad  theory,  that  society  gets  the  right 
to  hang,  as  the  individual  gets  the  right  to  defend  him- 
self. Suppose  she  does ;  there  are  certain  principles 
which  limit  this  right,  to  which  she  is  bound.  Besides, 
when  society  has  got  the  man  completely  in  her  power, 
what  is  she  to  do  with  him  ?  Suppose  a  man  attacks  me 
to-day ;  according  to  Dr.  Cheever,  I  have  the  right  to 
take  his  life.  But  the  law  says  :  "  No ;  if  you  can  restrain 
him,  you  must  do  so,  and  not  kill  him."  Society  has 
got  the  murderer  within  four  walls ;  he  never  can  do 
any  more  harm.  You  can  put  him  in  a  jail  from  whence 
he  can  never  escape  ;  where  he  can  never  see  the  face  of 
his  kind  again.  Has  society  any  need  to  take  that  man's 
life  to  protect  herself  ?  Has  she  retreated  to  the  wall  ? 
If  society  has  only  the  right  that  the  individual  has,  she 
has  no  right  to  inflict  the  penalty  of  death,  because  she 
can  effectually  restrain  the  individual  from  ever  again 
committing  his  offence.  Suppose  a  man  should  attempt 
to  kill  me  in  the  street,  and  I  should  take  his  life,  and 
when  I  was  brought  before  Chief-Justice  Shaw,  and 
asked  how  I  killed  him,  I  should  say  :  "  I  overcame  him  ; 
I  threw  him  on  the  sidewalk ;  I  bound  him  hand  and 
foot ;  and  then  I  killed  him,"  —  would  that  be  justifi- 
able ?  No,  I  should  be  imprisoned  for  manslaughter. 
Society  takes  the  murderer ;  she  shuts  him  up  in  jail ; 
she  keeps  him  ninety  days,  or  longer  :  she  tries  him  be- 


CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT.  99 

fore  twelve  men  ;  and  then,  having  him  utterly,  irreme- 
diably in  her  power,  she  hangs  him ;  and  then  she  turns, 
round  and  tells  you,  "  I  have  only  the  right  of  the  individ- 
ual ; "  and  the  common  law  retorts  upon  her :  "  You 
had  no  right  to  take  that  man's  life ;  you  might  have  re- 
strained him,  if  you  would,  and  you  had  no  right  to  kill 
him." 

As  I  said  at  the  beginning,  there  are  two  objects  of 
penalty,  —  first,  to  restrain  the  offender  from  repeating 
his  offence  ;  and  second,  to  deter  other  people  from  imi- 
tating it.  Now,  if  the  object  be  simply  to  prevent  the  in- 
dividual from  repeating  the  offence,  he  cannot  repeat  it 
if  he  is  shut  up  in  prison.  You  can  keep  him  there ; 
you  can  deny  to  the  governor  the  power  to  pardon  such 
persons.  You  can  declare,  as  O'Sullivan  proposes,  that 
such  persons  shall  not  be  pardoned  except  by  the  two- 
thirds  vote  of  three  successive  legislatures.  You  can 
keep  them  in  prison,  if  you  choose.  Nobody  can  say 
that  a  million  of  men  and  women,  with  one  poor,  hapless 
man  in  chains,  are  so  afraid  of  him  that  they  are  obliged 
to  take  his  life  in  order  to  prevent  the  offence.  No,  gen- 
tlemen, nobody  pretends  it.  The  only  claim  now  is, 
that  it  is  necessary,  in  order  to  prevent  other  men  from 
repeating  it. 

Here  is  another  point.  If  this  idea  of  hanging  men, 
for  example,  is  correct,  then  why  do  you  not  make  your 
executions  as  public  as  possible  ?  Why  do  you  not  hang 
men  at  the  centre  of  the  Common  ?  Our  fathers  did  it. 
They  hung  their  people  under  the  great  tree.  They 
hung  them  for  example,  and  of  course  they  wished  every- 
body to  see  it.  They  hung  men  upon  the  Neck,  and 
crowds  went  out  to  see  it.  If  example  is  the  object,  the 
sight  of  punishment  would  seem  to  be  essential  to  its  full 
effect.  Why,  Homer  tells  us,  two  thousand  years  ago,  that 
a  thing  seen  has  double  the  weight  of  a  thing  heard. 


100  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

Everybody  knows  that  a  child  will  recollect  what  he  sees 
ten  times  as  well  as  what  he  hears.  You  know  that  in 
old  times  (not  to  make  a  laugh  of  it),  in  Connecticut, 
they  used  to  take  the  children  to  the  line  of  the  town, 
and  there  give  them  a  whipping,  in  order  that  they 
might  remember  the  bounds  of  their  township  by  that 
spot.  Now,  there  are  fourteen  States  in  the  Union  that 
have  made  executions  private,  and  in  England  they  are 
private.  Only  a  few  men  —  some  twenty  or  thirty  or 
fifty  —  are  allowed  to  witness  them.  Mark  you,  the 
whole  claim  of  the  value  of  executions  now  lies  in  their 
example  ;  yet  it  is  found  that  out  of  one  hundred  and 
sixty-seven  persons  executed  in  England  within  a  cer- 
tain limit  of  time,  one  hundred  and  sixty -four  had  wit- 
nessed executions  !  All  the  crimes  of  the  world  have 
been  found  at  the  foot  of  the  gallows.  O'Sullivan  has 
recorded  six  or  eight  cases  of  persons  who  left  the  gal- 
lows to  go  home  and  commit  the  same  offence,  in  the 
same  way.  In  consequence  of  these  executions,  a  sort  of 
mania  for  killing  arises.  You  know  how  it  has  been  in 
other  cases,  —  what  a  mania  there  was  at  one  time  for 
shooting  Louis  Phillippe,  and  at  another  for  intruding 
on  Queen  Victoria.  It  takes  possession  of  people.  So- 
ciety has  learned  that  to  witness  executions  develops  a 
certain  instinct  for  blood  which  is  dangerous ;  and  so,  in 
many  countries,  the  government  does  not  permit  it. 

There  is  another  singular  thing  about  this  punish- 
ment. Here  is  an  ordinance  of  God,  of  the  sublimest 
authority  in  the  universe  (according  to  the  upholders  of 
capital  punishment),  commanding  us  to  execute  our 
fellow-men ;  and  yet,  in  all  civilized  society,  Mr.  Chair- 
man, the  man  who  executes  that  law  —  the  hangman  - 
is  not  esteemed  fit  for  decent  society.  In  Spain,  the  man 
who  has  hung  another  runs  out  of  the  city  in  disgrace, 
and  if  he  were  to  appear  again,  the  mob  would  tear  him 


CAPITAL    PUNISHMENT.  101 

in  pieces.     To  call  a  man  a  hangman  is  the  greatest 
insult  you  can  cast  upon  him. 

DR.  BEECHER  (interrupting}.  —  I  suppose  that  is  be- 
cause he  has  touched  sin  and  been  polluted. 

MR.  PHILLIPS.  —  But  the  mob  doe's  .not1  pelt  the  clergy- 
man who  takes  the  man's  hand  Only;thse  m^nieafc  -b^fdife,- 
he  is  executed  !  [This  retort  excited  great  merriment, 
the  audience  loudly  applauding.] 

No,  Mr.  Chairman,  it  is  a  very  remarkable  circum- 
stance that  in  all  time  the  man  who  did  his  duty  in 
obeying  this  statute  has  been  infamous. 

Then  here  is  another  very  important  fact.  That  stat- 
ute —  one  line  of  which,  according  to  these  gentlemen, 
has  sufficient  vitality  to  cover  all  space  and  time  —  is  so 
horrid  you  cannot  permit  the  world  to  look  at  it.  It  de- 
moralizes society.  The  reason  given  for  hiding  the 
gallows  was,  that  its  influence  was  demoralizing ;  it 
was  found  to  be  the  universal  testimony  that  executions 
were  great  promoters  of  crime.  The  London  police 
never  had  so  much  to  do  as  when  there  was  an  execu- 
tion. If  example  is  the  object,  why  certainly  the  ex- 
ample of  the  actual  thing  at  the  moment  ought  to  have 
prevented  people  from  committing  the  same  offence. 
Yet  you  remember  the  very  remarkable  case  of  the 
widow  of  a  forger  in  London,  who  begged  her  husband's 
body  of  the  executioner  and  took  it  home  ;  and  the  po- 
lice, suspecting  the  parties,  entered  the  house  and  found 
forged  notes  concealed  in  the  very  mouth  of  the  corpse  ! 
The  wife  and  the  other  parties  were  engaged  in  the  same 
crime,  and  to  conceal  it,  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  corpse 
the  evidence  of  their  guilt !  And  such  cases  are  not  at  all 
uncommon,  though  this  one  may  be  most  remarkable  in 
its  circumstances.  This  was  the  reason  why  executions 
were  made  private. 

Let  me  cite  high  authority  on  this  point.    Six  or  seven 


102  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

years  ago  Lord  Brougham  addressed  a  letter  to  Lord 
Lyndhurst.  Lord  Lyndhurst  had  said  that  one  of  the 
principal  reasons  for  resorting  to  capital  punishment 
was.  the  necessity  .of  deterring  others  by  punishing  the 
criminal  •severely.  .  Lord  Brougham  replies :  "  You,  sir, 
.£tfd,  myself,; have  been  well  acquainted  with  criminal 
jurisprudence  and  the  execution  of  criminal  law  in  Eng- 
land. I  appeal  to  you,  and  to  every  member  of  the  pro- 
fession familiar  with  criminal  law,  whether  the  idea 
of  deterring  others  from  committing  offences  by  pun- 
ishing the  offender  severely,  is  not  found,  in  practice, 
to  be  utterly  unsound.  It  has  no  sucli  effect  whatever." 

Lord  Brougham  goes  on  to  say  :  "  It  may  be  that  I  am 
Quixotic,  but  if  government  has  no  other  way  of  pro- 
tecting society  against  the  repetition  of  offences  except 
by  punishing  the  offender  severely,  then  government  is 
a  failure.  ...  In  my  opinion,"  he  adds,  "  the  only  pro- 
tection government  has  is  this :  Take  possession  of  the 
offender,  and  subject  him  to  moral  restraint.  Make 
your  jail  a  moral  hospital ;  make  the  man  over  again,  if 
you  can,  —  and  in  that  way  you  protect  society  from  that 
man  henceforth.  Take  the  rest  of  the  community  and 
educate  them,  and  in  that  way  you  protect  society  from 
them,  and  in  no  other."  I  am  not  quoting  a  morbid 
philanthropist  or  a  mere  sentimentalist,  but  a  cool,  hard 
lawyer,  who,  after  many  years  of  practice  and  ample  op- 
portunities for  observation,  comes  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  gallows,  and  penal  legislation  of  all  kinds,  if  it  lias 
no  other  object  than  the  example  of  punishment,  is  a 
failure,  and  that  there  is  no  remedy  but  education.  As 
Bulwer  has  well  said  :  "  Society  has  erected  the  gallows 
at  the  end  of  the  lane,  instead  of  guide-posts  and  direc- 
tion-boards at  the  beginning." 

There  is,  therefore,  gentlemen,  no  reason,  either  on 
the  ground  of  keeping  the  offender  from  repeating  his 


CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT.  103 

offence,  or  in  the  influence  of  the  example,  for  the  gal- 
lows ;  there  is  no  necessity  for  it.  Experience  proves 
that  there  is  not. 

Gentlemen,  I  would  not  weary  you  with  details  ;  but 
take  Rautoul's  reports,  and  you  will  find  my  statement 
fully  confirmed.  It  is  proved  by  English  history  that 
just  so  fast  as  you  take  the  death-penalty  from  a  crime, 
the  crime  diminishes.  Experience  is  all  that  way,  and 
not  the  other.  I  hold  that  you  cannot  oblige  us  to  show 
that  taking  away  the  gallows  is  better  than  to  keep  it. 
It  is  acknowledged  that  as  regards  the  prevention  of 
crime  the  gallows  is  a  failure.  You  do  not  prevent 
crime  by  hanging  the  criminal,  —  it  increases.  Attorney- 
General  Austin  asked  the  legislature,  in  a  report  made, 
I  think,  in  1843,  to  give  up  capital  punishment,  because 
it  did  not  restrain  murder.  Remember,  this  is  Attorney- 
General  Austin,  —  a  man  not  suspected  of  any  exceeding 
humanity,  a  man  who  did  not  look  at  this  subject  from 
any  sentimental  point  of  view,  but  simply  as  a  lawyer. 
Here  is  what  he  said :  — 

"  Whether  the  punishment  of  death  should  be  abolished  in 
any  of  the  few  cases  to  which  it  is  now  applied  [the  capital 
penalty  of  robbery  and  burglary  had  been  done  away  with 
in  1839]  has  often  been  a  subject  of  legislative  inquiry.  It 
does  not  belong  to  me  to  enter  upon  an  argument  that  is 
nearly  exhausted ;  but  I  deem  it  within  my  province  in  this 
connection  respectfully  to  submit  to  the  legislature  that,  in 
the  present  state  of  society,  it  is  no  longer  an  abstract  ques- 
tion, whether  capital  punishment  is  right,  but  whether  it  be 
practicable  ;  and  that  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that 
punishment  for  crime  would  more  certainly  follow  its  commis- 
mission  If  the  legislature  should  further  abrogate  the  penalty 
of  death.  As  the  law  now  stands  in  this  respect,  its  efficiency 
is  mostly  in  its  threatenings  ;  but  the  terror  of  a  trial  is 
diminishing,  and  the  culprit  finds  his  impunity  in  the  seventy 
which  it  denounces." 


104  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

Now,  gentlemen,  if  you  cannot  execute  a  law,  it  is 
manifest  that  it  better  not  be  on  the  statute-book.  This 
is  just  what  they  found  in  England.  For  instance,  the 
law  used  to  be  that  a  man  should  be  hung  for  stealing  a 
shilling.  That  was  thought  too  hard,  and  the  sum  was 
raised  to  forty  shillings  ;  but  under  this  law,  no  jury 
could  be  found  to  convict,  —  they  would  find  some  way 
to  evade  the  statute.  Thus,  in  one  case,  a  man  was 
taken  up  for  stealing  a  watch  which  cost  ten  or  fifteen 
pounds.  The  man  had  undoubtedly  stolen  it ;  it  was 
proved  against  him.  The  jury  brought  him  in  guilty  of 
stealing  the  watch,  and  found  that  the  watch  was  worth 
thirty-nine  shillings,  eleven  pence.  The  watch-maker 
said,  "  Why,  the  very  fashion  of  that  watch  was  worth 
five  pounds."  "  Perhaps  it  was,"  said  the  jury,  "  but  we 
don't  hang  a  man  for  five  pounds."  Afterwards  they 
raised  the  amount  to  five  pounds ;  then  the  jury  brought 
the  accuse^  in  guilty  of  stealing  four  pounds,  nineteen 
shillings,  eleven  pence,  —  always  keeping  one  penny 
behind  the  hanging  limit.  Of  course  it  was  perjury,  but 
the  jury  would  not  convict  of  the  crimes  of  stealing  and 
forgery,  when  the  penalty  was  death.  The  legislature 
said,  The  man  who  forges  shall  be  hung, — but  men  forged 
every  day,  and  every  hour  of  the  day  ;  and  the  bankers 
of  London,  with  millions  of  pounds  resting  on  the  fidel- 
ity of  an  autograph,  went  before  the  legislature  and 
said,  "  Be  kind  enough  to  pass  a  statute  against  forgery 
that  shall  not  inflict  the  punishment  of  death."  It  was 
found  that  a  man  charged  with  forgery  was  certain  to 
be  acquitted  ;  the  witnesses  quibbled,  the  juries  quibbled, 
the  prosecuting  officer  quibbled,  until  no  man  was  ever 
hung  for  forgery.  Then  the  bankers  of  London  (one 
thousand  of  them)  went  before  the  legislature,  and  said, 
"  Your  gallows  is  no  protection  to  us  ;  be  kind  enough 
to  take  it  away  ! " 


CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT.  105 

Gentlemen,  for  one  hundred  years,  the  progress  of  all 
legislation  has  been  to  throw  away  these  extreme  penal- 
ties ;  and  in  proportion  as  it  has  done  so,  crime  has 
diminished.  That  shows  that  society  does  not  need  the 
gallows  for  protection ;  and  if  it  does  not  need  it  for 
protection,  it  has  no  right  to  it.  These  gentlemen  will 
not  contend,  of  course,  that  society  has  a  right  to  take 
life  from  caprice,  from  whim,  from  taste,  but  only  from 
necessity.  If  we  show  you  that  when  it  has  been  with- 
drawn from  a  crime,  that  crime  has  diminished,  then,— 
I  say,  we  show  you  a  competent  and  sufficient  argument 
why  it  should  be  abolished.  We  have  got  outside  of  the 
Bible  now  ;  we  have  got  the  experience  of  two  hundred 
years  in  England,  that  every  crime  from  which  the  pen- 
alty of  the  gallows  was  taken  off  has  diminished ;  we 
have  got  the  experience  of  Russia,  of  Tuscany,  of  Bel- 
gium, of  Sir  James  Mackintosh  in  India,  where  they 
have  given  up  the  death  penalty,  yet  murder  did  not 
increase.  You  say,  these  experiments  were  local,  and 
for  a  short  time ;  true,  but  they  were  all  one  way. 
Society  has  never  tried  the  gallows  but  to  fail.  Now,  all 
we  ask  of  Massachusetts  is,  that  when  she  has  tried  the 
one  and  not  succeeded,  she  shall  now  try  the  other. 
We  used  to  punish  highway  robbery  with  death.  Then 
that  crime  was  frequent ;  but  things  got  to  such  a  state 
that,  as  Robert  Rantoul  said,  a  man  was  more  likely  to 
be  struck  by  lightning,  sitting  in  his  parlor  in  any  town 
of  the  Commonwealth,  than  to  be  hung  for  highway 
robbery.  We  took  off  the  penalty  of  death,  and  then 
highway  robbery  diminished ;  there  were  more  cases 
before  than  since. 

In  the  States  that  have  abolished  the  death  penalty, 
the  result  has  been  entirely  satisfactory ;  and  every 
humane  man  must  rejoice  at  it.  Take  Michigan,  and 
those  States  that  have  rescinded  the  penalty  ;  they  were 


106  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

no  worse  off  than  Massachusetts.  I  say  that  this  is  a 
State  pre-eminently  fitted  to  try  this  experiment.  We 
are  the  great  Normal  School  of  all  civil  government,  — 
Massachusetts.  We  have  the  most  moral  people  on 
the  face  of  the  earth  ;  we  have  the  best  circumstances 
for  an  experiment  in  civil  government ;  we  have  a 
people  with  wealth  equally  divided  ;  we  have  common 
schools ;  we  are  a  people  with  a  high  moral  tone ; 
we  have  a  homogeneous  population  ;  it  is  easy  to  get 
a  living  here,  and  poverty,  therefore,  does  not  drive 
to  crime,  as  in  some  other  places,  —  our  circumstances 
are  all  favorable  to  morality.  We  are  in  a  better  condi- 
tion to  try  such  an  experiment  than  Michigan,  far  better 
than  Belgium,  Tuscany,  or  Russia  ;  yet  they  tried  it  and 
were  successful,  and  why  will  not  we  try  it  also  ?  All 
the  great  lights  of  jurisprudence  are  on  our  side, — 
Franklin,  Livingston,  Rush,  Lafayette,  Beccaria,  Grotius, 
—  I  might  mention  forty  eminent  names,  all  throwing 
their  testimony  against  the  gallows.  Lafayette  said,  "  I 
shall  demand  the  abolition  of  the  penalty  of  death,  until 
you  show  me  the  infallibility  of  human  testimony." 
He  thought  it  was  enough  to  discredit  the  gallows, 
that  men  might  be  hung  by  mistake.  There  have  been 
two  or  three  scores  of  such  cases  in  the  history  of 
jurisprudence. 

Now,  with  all  this  experience  on  our  side,  with  the 
fact  that  we  are  the  very  best  government  in  the  world 
to  try  the  experiment,  with  the  testimony  of  Lord 
Brougham  —  a  man  not  biassed  by  any  peculiar  circum- 
stances, by  any  religious  fanaticism,  by  any  sentimental 
enthusiasm  —  that  this  idea  of  deterring  from  offences 
by  example  is  a  failure  ;  that  education  is  the  only 
thing ;  that  the  prison  ought  to  be  a  moral  hospital ; 
that  the  man  is  to  be  taken  possession  of,  and  restrained 
by  moral  influences,  —  shall  we  be  behind  such  a  man 


CAPITAL    PUNISHMENT.  107 

as   Lord    Brougham  ?      It   seems    that   we   ought   not 
to  be. 

I  will  detain  the  Committee  but  a  moment  longer.  I 
think  I  have  thrown  some  remarks  before  you  that  go  to 
show  this  :  That  this  covenant  with  Noali  is  one  not 
binding  on  this  legislature  ;  or  if  it  is,  that  it  is  binding 
in  its  whole.  And  yet  you  will  not  for  an  hour  think  of 
receiving  it  as  a  whole,  and  obeying  it  as  a  whole  ;  you 
would  be  the  shame  of  Christendom  if  you  attempted  to 
obey  it.  If  it  is  not  a  statute  to  be  obeyed  wholly,  then 
it  is  nothing.  If  Dr.  Cheever  may  shape  it  one  way,  like 
a  piece  of  wax,  we  can  shape  it  another ;  if  he  can  drive 
civil  government  through  it,  we  can  drive  the  abolition 
of  the  gallows  through  it.  Then,  gentlemen,  as  to  the 
necessity  of  it.  The  whole  current  of  legislation  is  to 
give  it  up.  We  have  given  it  up  in  almost  all  cases,  and 
we  are  safer  than  we  were.  No  State  that  has  abolished 
it  has  ever  taken  a  backward  step  voluntarily.  It  was 
re-established  in  Tuscany  by  a  foreign  power,  and  is  not 
executed  even  there.  I  understand  that  the  Grand  Duke 
of  Tuscany  promised  his  sister  never  to  obey  the  law 
forced  upon  him  by  Napoleon,  and  you  see  murderers 
walking  in  their  parti-colored  dress  along  the  streets  of 
Leghorn  and  Florence  ;  yet  Tuscany  is  the  most  moral 
and  well-behaved  country  in  Italy.  So  it  is  with  our 
States.  All  experience  points  one  way.  The  old  bar- 
barous practices  have  gradually  given  place  to  others 
more  humane  and  merciful.  Once  a  prisoner  was  not 
allowed  to  swear  his  witnesses ;  then  they  would  not 
allow  him  counsel.  Now  he  may  swear  his  witnesses, 
and  is  entitled  to  counsel ;  yet  the  government  is  safe. 
Men  used  to  say,  "  We  cannot  get  rid  of  the  gallows. 
Why,  murder  is  so  rife  in  the  land  that  if  you  don't  have 
the  very  worst  punishment  man  can  devise,  no  man's 
life  will  be  safe."  If  this  was  so,  why  did  n't  you  impale 


108  CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT. 

the  criminal,  as  in  Algiers ;  or  crucify  him,  as  the  Ro- 
mans did  ?  Why  did  n't  you  make  the  gallows  as  cruel 
as  possible  ?  If  you  wanted  the  terror  of  example,  if 
you  wanted  the  blood  to  freeze  in  the  hearts  of  men,  why 
did  you  not  make  the  punishment  as  cruel  as  you  could  ? 
That  is  not  the  spirit  of  the  age.  The  question  argued 
now  is,  what  is  the  easiest  mode  of  death  ?  A  writer  in 
the  London  Quarterly  maintains  that  death  by  the  guil- 
lotine is  the  easiest,  and  that  government  ought  to  adopt 
the  guillotine  instead  of  the  gallows.  The  question  is 
not  now  how  we  shall  most  frighten  men,  but  how  we 
shall  take  life  the  easiest.  It  has  even  been  proposed  to 
give  chloroform  to  the  man  about  to  be  executed,  from 
motives  of  humanity.  If  you  want  to  frighten  people, 
adopt  the  cruelest  punishment  you  can  invent ;  and  yet, 
if  you  should  do  so,  if  you  should  take  pains  to  make 
your  punishments  as  severe  and  cruel  as  possible,  the 
humanity  of  the  nineteenth  century  would  rebuke  you. 
Unconsciously,  without  considering  the  logic  hidden 
under  it,  without  considering  what  inferences  would  be 
drawn  from  it,  the  efforts  of  physicians  and  of  men  of 
jurisprudence  have  been  to  find  out  the  easiest  mode  of 
taking  life.  The  French  claim  that  the  guillotine  is  the 
easiest,  and  therefore  they  adopt  it.  If  you  can  come 
down  one  step,  if  you  can  give  up  the  rack  arid  the 
wheel,  impaling,  tearing  to  death  with  wild  horses,  why 
cannot  you  come  down  two,  and  adopt  imprisonment  ? 
Why  cannot  you  come  down  three,  and  instead  of  put- 
ting the  man  in  a  jail,  make  your  prisons,  as  Brougham 
recommends,  moral  hospitals,  and  educate  him  ?  Why 
cannot  you  come  down  four,  and  put  him  under  the  in- 
fluence of  some  community  of  individuals  who  will  labor 
to  waken  again  the  moral  feelings  and  sympathies  of  his 
nature  ? 

Who  knows  how  many  steps  you  can  come  down  ? 


CAPITAL    PUNISHMENT.  109 

We  came  down  one  when  we  gave  up  burning  at  the 
stake  ;  we  came  down  another  when  we  gave  up  the 
tearing  of  the  body  to  pieces  with  red-hot  pincers  ;  we 
came  down  another  when  we  gave  up  the  torture  of  the 
wheel.  You  cannot  tolerate  these  things  now.  Society 
has  been  forced,  by  the  instinct  of  humanity,  against  its 
logic,  to  put  away  these  cruel  penalties.  Men  have  been 
crying  out  continually  against  this  instinct  of  mercy 
which  sought  to  make  the  dungeon  less  terrible  ;  they 
feared  to  remove  a  cobweb  from  that  dungeon's  cruelty, 
lest  the  world  should  go  to  pieces.  Yet  the  world  swept 
it  down,  and  is  safer  to-day  than  ever  before. 

Now  we  ask  you  to  abolish  the  gallows.  It  is  only 
one  step  further  in  the  same  direction.  Massachusetts 
has  got  up  to  the  wall.  She  has  thrown  it  away  for 
almost  all  offences  ;  she  only  retains  it  for  one  or  two. 
We  ask  you  to  take  one  more  step  in  the  same  direction. 
Take  it,  because  the  civilized  world  is  taking  it  in  many 
quarters  !  Take  it,  because  the  circumstances  of  the 
time  prove  you  may  take  it  safely  !  Take  it,  because  it 
is  well  to  try  experiments  for  humanity,  and  this  is  a 
favorable  community  to  try  them  in. 

These  are  the  arguments,  gentlemen  of  the  Com- 
mittee, on  which  we  ask  you  to  abolish  the  punishment 
of  death  in  this  Commonwealth. 


SUFFRAGE  FOR  WOMAN. 


Addresses  made  at  the  Tenth  Woman's  Eights  Convention  at 
Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  May  10  and  11,  1861. 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  LADIES,  AND  GENTLEMEN :  I  wish  I 
could  carry  on  the  same  strain  of  remark  which 
has  just  been  addressed  to  you,  for  that  touches  the  very 
heart  of  the  question  which  brings  us  together  this 
morning.  We  are  seeking  to  change  certain  laws, — 
laws  based  on  sex.  Now,  as  he  has  suggested,  there  is 
another  realm  beside  that  of  law,  there  is  another  arena 
beside  the  civil,  and  that  is  the  social  state.  We  arrange 
certain  matters  of  the  statute-book ;  we  let  other  mat- 
ters arrange  themselves,  according  to  what  we  call 
fashion  and  unfettered  public  opinion,  —  that  is,  society. 
We  may  gather  a  very  distinct  idea  of  what  would  be 
the  natural  result  in  civil  affairs,  if  we  look  for  a  mo- 
ment at  what  has  been  the  result  of  the  conflict 
of  powers  in  the  social  state,  —  for  there  power  works 
out  untrammelled  its  natural  result.  Majorities  do  not 
rule  there,  but  real  power,  —  the  agreeable,  the  fit,  the 
useful,  —  that  which  commends  itself  to  the  best  sense. 

Social  life  began  centuries  ago,  just  where  legal  life 
stands  to-day.  It  began  with  the  recognition  of  man 
only.  Woman  was  nothing ;  she  was  a  drudge ;  she 
was  a  toy  ;  she  was  a  chattel ;  she  was  a  connecting  link 
between  man  and  the  brute.  That  is  Oriental  civiliza- 
tion. We  drift  westward,  into  the  sunlight  of  Chris- 


SUFFRAGE  FOB   WOMAN.  Ill 

tianity  and  European  civilization,  and  as  Milton  paints 
animal  life  freeing  itself  from  the  clod,  and  tells  us,  you 
recollect,  of  the  tawny  lion,  with  his  mane  and  fore-feet 
liberated,  pawing  to  get  free  his  hinder  parts,  so  the 
mental  has  gradually  freed  itself  from  the  incumbrance 
of  the  animal,  and  we  come  round  to  a  society  based  on 
thought,  based  on  soul.  What  is  the  result  ?  Why,  it 
would  be  idle  to  say  that  there  woman  is  man's  equal ; 
she  is  his  superior.  In  social  life  she  has  taken  the 
lead ;  she  dictates.  Hers  is  this  realm,  and  from  her 
judgment  there  is  no  appeal.  Her  intellect  summoned 
literature  into  being,  almost ;  as  a  reader  she  has  de- 
manded that  it  shall  be  decent ;  and  now  she  takes  her 
pen  as  a  writer,  and  controls  the  world,  as  the  sceptre  of 
genius  always  controls  it,  no  matter  what  lips,  male  or 
female,  God's  living  coal  has  touched. 

That,  I  say,  is  the  counterpart,  the  picture,  that  repre- 
sents to  us  what  law  and  the  civil  state  are  to  undergo 
in  their  successive  changes.  We  are  here  to-day  only 
to  endeavor  to  enforce  on  the  consideration  of  the  civil 
state  those  elements  of  power  which  have  already  made 
a  social  state.  You  do  not  find  it  necessary  to-day  to 
say  to  a  husband  :  "  Your  wife  has  a  right  to  read ; "  or 
necessary  to  say  to  Dickens, "  You  have  as  many  women 
over  your  pages  as  men."  You  do  not  find  it  necessary 
to  say  to  the  male  members  of  a  church  that  the  women 
members  have  a  right  to  change  their  creed.  All  that 
is  settled  ;  nobody  contests  it.  If  a  man  stood  up  here 
and  said,  "  I  am  a  Calvinist,  and  therefore  my  wife  is 
bound  to  be  one,"  -  -  you  would  send  him  to  a  lunatic 
asylum.  You  would  say,  "  Poor  man  !  don't  judge  him 
by  what  he  says  ;  he  does  n't  mean  it."  But  law  is  halt- 
ing back  just  where  that  old  civilization  was ;  we  want 
to  change  it. 

We  are  not  doing  anything  new.     There  is  no  fanati- 


112  SUFFRAGE   FOR   WOMAN. 

cism  about  it.  We  are  merely  extending  the  area  of 
liberty,  —  nothing  else.  We  have  made  great  progress. 
The  law  passed  in  your  State  at  the  last  session  of  the 
legislature  grants,  in  fact,  the  whole  question.  The 
moment  you  grant  us  anything,  we  have  gained  the 
whole.  You  cannot  stop  with  an  inconsistent  statute- 
book.  A  man  is  uneasy  who  is  inconsistent.  As  old 
Fuller  says,  "  You  cannot  make  one  side  of  the  face 
laugh,  and  the  other  cry  !  "  You  cannot  have  one  half 
your  statute-book  Jewish,  and  the  other  Christian ;  one 
half  the  statute-book  Oriental,  the  other  Saxon.  You 
have  granted  that  women  may  be  hung,  therefore  you 
must  grant  that  women  may  vote.  You  have  granted 
that  she  may  be  taxed  ;  therefore,  on  republican  princi- 
ples, you  must  grant  that  she  ought  to  have  a  voice  in 
fixing 'the**  laws  of  taxation,  —  and  this  is,  in  fact,  all 
that  we  claim  —  the  whole  of  it. 

Now  I  want  to  consider  some  of  the  objections  that 
a^  made  to  this  claim.  Men  say  :  "  Woman  is  not  fit 
to  vote ;  she  does  not  know  enough ;  she  has  not  sense 
enough  to  vote."  I  take  this  idea  of  the  ballot  as  the 
Gibraltar  of  our  claim  for  this  reason,  because  I  arn 
speaking  in  a  democracy  ;  I  am  speaking  under  republi- 
can institutions.  The  rule  of  despotism  is  that  one 
class  is  made  to  protect  the  other ;  that  the  rich,  the 
noble,  the  educated,  are  a  sort  of  Probate  Court,  to  take 
care  of  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  and  the  common  classes. 
Our  fathers  got  rid  of  all  that.  They  knocked  it  in  the 
head  by  the  simple  principle  that  no  class  is  safe,  unless 
government  is  so  arranged  that  each  class  has  in  its 
own  hands  the  means  of  protecting  itself.  That  is  the 
idea  of  republics.  The  Briton  says  to  the  poor  man : 
4<  Be  content !  I  am  worth  five  millions  and  I  will  pro- 
tect you ; "  America  says  :  "  Thank  you,  sir ;  I  had 
rather  take  care  of  mvself !  "  —  and  that  is  the  essence 


SUFFRAGE   FOR   WOMAN.  113 

of  democracy.  [Applause.]  It  is  the  corner-stone  of 
progress  also,  because,  the  moment  you  have  admitted 
that  poor,  ignorant  heart  as  an  element  of  the  govern- 
ment, ahle  to  mould  your  institutions,  those  five  millions 
of  dollars  feel  that  their  cradle  is  not  safe  and  their 
life  is  in  peril,  unless  that  heart  is  bulwarked  with  edu- 
cation and  informed  with  morality  ;  selfishness  dictates 
that  wealth  and  education  should  do  its  utmost  to  edu- 
cate poverty  and  hold  up  weakness,  —  and  that  is  the 
philosophy  of  democratic  institutions.  [Applause.] 

I  am  speaking  in  a  republic  which  admits  the  principle 
that  the  poor  are  not  to  be  protected  by  the  rich,  but  to 
have  the  means  of  protecting  themselves.  So,  too,  with 
the  ignorant ;  so,  too,  with  races.  The  Irish  are  not  to 
trust  to  the  sense  of  justice  in  the  Saxon  ;  the  German  is 
not  to  trust  to  the  native-born  citizen ;  the  Catholic  is 
not  to  trust  to  the  Protestant :  but  all  sects,  all  classes, 
are  to  hold  in  their  own  hands  the  sceptre  —  the  Ameri- 
can sceptre — of  the  ballot,  which  protects  each  class. 
We  claim  it,  therefore,  for  woman.  The  reply  is  that 
woman  has  not  sense  enough.  If  she  has  not,  so 
much  the  more  shame  for  your  public  schools,  —  educate 
her !  If  God  did  not  give  her  mind  enough,  then  you 
are  brutes ;  for  you  say  to  her  •  "  Madam,  you  have  sense 
enough  to  earn  your  own  living,  —  don't  come  to  us  !  " 
You  make  her  earn  her  own  bread,  and  if  she  has  sense 
enougli  to  do  that,  she  has  enough  to  say  whether 
Fernando  Wood  or  Governor  Morgan  shall  take  one 
cent  out  of  every  hundred  to  pay  for  fire-works.  When 
you  hold  her  up  in  both  hands  and  say :  "  Let  me  work 
for  you  !  Don't  move  one  of  your  dainty  fingers  !  We 
will  pour  wealth  into  your  lap,  and  be  ye  clothed  in  satin 
and  velvet,  all  ye  daughters  of  Eve  !  "  —  then  you  will  be 
consistent  in  saying  that  woman  lias  not  sense  enough 
to  vote  ;  but  if  she  has  sense  enough  to  work,  to  depend 

8 


114  SUFFRAGE    FOR   WOMAN. 

for  her  bread  on  her  work,  she  has  sense  enough  to 
vote. 

Then,  again,  men  say,  "  She  is  so  different  from  man 
that  God  did  not  mean  she  should  vote."  Is  she  ?  Then 
I  do  not  know  how  to  vote  for  her.  [Applause.]  One  of 
two  things  is  true :  She  is  either  exactly  like  man,  — 
exactly  like  him,  teetotally  like  him,  —  and  if  she  is,  then 
a  ballot-box  based  upon  brains  belongs  to  her  as  well  as 
him  ;  or  she  is  different,  and  then  1  do  not  know  how  to 
vote  for  her.  If  she  is  like  me,  so  much  like  me,  that 
I  know  just  as  well  how  to  vote  for  her  as  she  knows 
how  to  vote  for  herself,  then,  —  the  very  basis  of  the  bal- 
lot-box being  capacity,  —  she,  being  the  same  as  I,  has 
the  same  right  to  vote ;  and  if  she  is  so  different  that 
she  has  a  different  range  of  avocations  and  powers  and 
capacities,  then  it  is  necessary  she  should  go  into 
the  legislature,  and  with  her  own  voice  say  what  she 
wants,  and  write  her  wishes  into  statute-books,  because 
nobody  is  able  to  interpret  her.  Choose  which  horn  of 
the  dilemma  you  please,  for  on  the  one  or  the  other,  the 
question  of  the  right  of  woman  to  vote  must  hang. 

It  is  exactly  the  question  of  races.  You  might  as 
well  say  that  the  Irishman  is  not  like  the  Saxon  ;  that 
the  Hindoo  is  not  like  the  Englishman,  —  the  world  ad- 
mits that  they  are  not.  Races  are  different ;  therefore, 
the  German  may  well  say,  "  You  are  a  Yankee,  with  a 
soul  curbed  in  a  sixpence ;  you  are  not  capable  of 
voting  for  me.  Your  whole  past  and  present  are  dif- 
ferent from  mine,  and  when  I  come  to  be  an  element 
in  your  civilization,  I  must  shoot  up  my  peaks  into  the 
highest  land  of  legislative  and  civil  life,  because  I  want 
to  be  represented  there  as  well  as  you." 

I  do  not  think  woman  is  identical  with  man.  I  think 
if  she  was,  marriage  would  be  a  very  stupid  state.  God 
made  the  races  and  sexes  the  complement  one  of  the 


SUFFRAGE    FOR   WOMAN.  115 

other,  and  not  the  identical  copy.  I  think  the  world, 
and  literature  itself,  would  be  barren  and  insipid,  if  it 
was  not  for  this  exquisite  variety  of  capacities  and  en- 
dowments with  which  God  has  variegated  the  human 
race.  I  think  woman  is  different  from  man,  and  by 
reason  of  that  very  difference,  she  should  be  in  legis- 
lative halls,  and  everywhere  else,  in  order  to  protect 
herself. 

But  men  say  it  would  be  very  indelicate  for  woman  to 
go  to  the  ballot-box  or  sit  in  the  legislature.  Well, 
what  would  she  see  there  ?  Why,  she  would  see  men. 
[Laughter.]  She  sees  men  now.  In  "  Cranford  Vil- 
lage," that  sweet  little  sketch  by  Mrs.  Gaskell,  one  of 
the  characters  says,  "  I  know  these  men,  —  my  father 
was  a  man."  [Laughter.]  I  think  every  woman  can 
say  the  same.  She  meets  men  now,  she  could  meet 
nothing  but  men  at  the  ballot-box  ;  or,  if  she  meets 
brutes,  they  ought  not  to  be  there.  [Applause.]  In- 
delicate for  her  to  go  to  the  ballot-box !  —  but  you  may 
walk  up  and  down  Broadway  any  time  from  nine  o'clock 
in  the  morning  until  nine  at  night,  and  you  will  find 
about  equal  numbers  of  men  and  women  crowding  that 
thoroughfare,  which  is  never  still.  You  may  get  into 
an  omnibus,  —  women  are  there,  crowding  us  out  some- 
times. [Laughter.]  You  cannot  go  into  a  theatre 
without  being  crowded  to  death  by  two  women  to  one 
man.  If  you  go  to  the  Lyceum,  woman  is  there.  I 
have  stood  on  this  very  platform,  and  seen  as  many 
women  as  men  before  me,  and  one  time,  at  least,  when 
they  could  not  have  met  any  worse  men  at  the  ballot- 
box  than  they  met  in  this  hall.  [Laughter  and  ap- 
plause.] You  may  go  to  church,  and  you  will  find  her 
facing  men  of  all  classes,  —  ignorant  and  wise,  saints  and 
sinners.  I  do  not  know  anywhere  that  woman  is  not. 

It  is  too  late  now  to  say  that  she  cannot  go  to  the 


116  SUFFRAGE   FOR   WOMAN. 

ballot-box.  Go  back  to  Turkey,  and  shut  her  up  in  a 
harem  ;  go  back  to  Greece,  and  shut  her  up  in  the  pri- 
vate apartments  of  women ;  go  back  to  the  old  Oriental 
phases  of  civilization,  that  never  allowed  woman's  eyes 
to  light  a  man's  pathway,  unless  he  owned  her,  and  you 
are  consistent ;  but  you  see,  we  have  broken  down  that 
bulwark  centuries  ago.  You  know  they  used  to  let  a 
man  be  hung  in  public,  and  said  that  it  was  for  the  sake 
of  the  example.  They  got  ashamed  of  it,  and  banished 
the  gallows  to  the  jail-yard,  and  allowed  only  twelve  men 
to  witness  an  execution.  It  is  too  late  to  say  that  you 
hang  men  for  the  example,  because  the  example  you 
are  ashamed  to  have  public  cannot  be  a  wholesome 
example. 

So  it  is  with  this  question  of  woman  ;  you  have 
granted  so  much,  that  you  have  left  yourself  no 
ground  to  stand  on.  My  dear,  delicate  friend,  you  are 
out  of  your  sphere  ;  you  ought  to  be  in  Turkey.  My 
dear,  religiously,  scrupulously  fashionable,  exquisitely 
anxious  hearer,  fearful  lest  your  wife  or  daughter  or 
sister  shall  be  sullied  by  looking  into  your  neighbors' 
faces  at  the  ballot-box,  you  do  not  belong  to  the  century 
that  has  ballot-boxes.  You  belong  to  the  century  of 
Tamerlane  and  Timour  the  Tartar ;  you  belong  to  China, 
where  the  women  have  no  feet,  because  it  is  not  meant 
that  they  shall  walk.  You  belong  anywhere  but  in 
America ;  and  if  you  want  an  answer,  walk  down  Broad- 
way and  meet  a  hundred  thousand  petticoats,  and  they 
are  a  hundred  thousand  answers.  For  if  woman  can 
walk  the  streets,  she  can  go  to  the  ballot-box,  and  any 
reason  of  indelicacy  that  forbids  the  one,  covers  the 
other. 

Woman  will  meet  at  the  ballot-box  the  same  men 
she  sees  in  the  lecture-room,  the  church,  the  theatre, 
the  railroad  cars,  and  the  public  streets.  Long  used 


SUFFRAGE    FOR   WOMAN.  117 

to  respect  woman's  presence  in  those  places,  the  vast 
majority  of  men  obey  there  the  laws  of  decency  and 
good  manners ;  and  no  husband  or  father  thinks  it 
necessary  to  prohibit  entirely  his  wife  or  daughter's  en- 
trance to  a  theatre,  church,  car,  or  street,  because  some 
rare  individual  may  chance  to  insult  or  offend  her. 
Indeed,  I  may  go  further.  The  bully  who  knocks  your 
hat  over  your  eyes  at  the  polling-booth  would  turn  you 
out  of  his  own  house  if  you  uttered  a  word  disrespectful 
to  his  wife,  mother,  or  daughter.  He  knows  what  is  due 
to  woman.  Let;  woman  go  to  the  ballot-box,  and  the 
rudest  man  will  in  time  be  ashamed  not  to  carry  there 
his  good  manners.  The  keenest  insult  you  can  offer 
even  to  a  rowdy,  —  the  one  he  will  resent  the  quick- 
est, —  is  to  hint  that  he  does  not  know  what  is  due  to 
woman.  In  his  own  parlor  he  puts  on  his  decency,  and 
claims  it  of  others.  I  will  extend  that  parlor  until  it 
includes  the  polling-booth,  when  I  give  to  both  alike 
the  restraining  influence  of  the  presence  of  woman. 

All  we  ask  is,  that  our  civilization  shall  be  made  com- 
plete and  consistent.  We  base  our  civilization  on  ideas. 
We  say  that  representation  and  taxation  go  hand  in 
hand.  We  say  that  Daniel  Webster,  no  matter  though 
his  gifts  be  godlike,  is  entitled  to  no  more  ballots  than 
the  Irishman  who  pays  nine  shillings'  poll-tax,  and  can 
just  write  his  own  name.  We  do  not  base  our  institu- 
tions on  mental  discipline,  on  culture ;  we  base  them  on 
enough  brains  to  be  responsible  to  penal  statutes.  The 
man  who  is  not  enough  of  an  idiot  to  be  excused  from 
the  gallows,  has  sanity  enough  to  be  entitled  to  vote. 
That  is  the  principle  of  Republicanism.  Now,  I  claim, 
and  always  shall  claim,  that  as  long  as  woman  has 
brains  enough  to  be  hung,  she  has  brains  enough  to  go 
to  the  ballot-box  ;  and  not  until  you  strike  her  name  off 
the  tax-list,  and  excuse  her  from  penal  legislation,  will 


118  SUFFRAGE    FOR   WOMAN. 

you   be  justified    in  keeping  her  name  off  the  list  of 
voters. 

Men  say,  u  Why  do  you  come  here  ?  What  good  are 
you  going  to  do  ?  You  do  nothing  hut  talk."  Oh,  yes, 
we  have  done  a  good  deal  beside  talk  !  But  suppose  we 
had  done  nothing  but  talk  ?  I  saw  a  poor  man  the 
other  day,  and  said  he  (speaking  of  a  certain  period  in 
his  life),  "  I  felt  very  friendless  and  alone,  —  I  had  only 
God  with  me  ; "  and  he  seemed  to  think  that  was  not 
much.  And  so  thirty  millions  of  thinking,  reading  peo- 
ple are  constantly  throwing  it  in  the  teeth  of  Reformers 
that  they  rely  upon  talk!  What  is  talk  ?  Why,  it  is 
the  representative  of  brains.  And  what  is  the  charac- 
teristic glory  of  the  nineteenth  century  ?  That  it  is 
-uled  by  brains,  and  not  by  muscle  ;  that  rifles  are 
gone  by,  and  ideas  have  come  in  ;  and,  of  course,  in 
such  an  era,  talk  is  the  fountain-head  of  all  things. 
But  we  have  done  a  great  deal.  In  the  first  place,  you 
will  meet  dozens  of  men  who  say,  "  Oh,  woman's  right 
to  property,  the  right  of  the  wife  to  her  own  earnings, 
we  grant  that;  we  always  thought  that;  we  have  had 
that  idea  for  a  dozen  years."  I  met  a  man  the  other 
day  in  the  cars,  and  we  read  the  statute  of  your  New 
York  Legislature.  "  Why,"  said  he  ;  "  that  is  nothing  ; 
I  have  assented  to  that  for  these  fifteen  years."  All  I 
could  say  to  that  was  this,  —  "  This  agitation  has  either 
given  you  the  idea,  or  it  has  given  you  the  courage  to 
utter  it,  for  nobody  ever  heard  it  from  you  until  to- 
day." These  new-comers  on  our  platform — very  wel- 
come they  are  !  —  must  come  under  one  guise  or  the 
other.  This  agitation,  of  which  Mrs.  Rose  has  sketched 
the  history,  has  either  given  them  their  principles,  or 
given  them  their  lips.  It  has  given  them  the  thoughts, 
or  the  courage  to  utter  the  thoughts ;  and  in  either 
sense,  it  is  a  useful  method,  it  is  a  beneficial  result. 


SUFFRAGE    FOR   WOMAN.  119 

It   has  helped   them,  and  it  is  beginning  to  help  the 
community. 

What  do  we  toil  for  ?  Why,  my  friends,  I  do  not  care 
much  whether  a  woman  actually  goes  to  the  baliot-box 
and  votes  —  that  is  a  slight  matter ;  and  I  shall  not 
wait,  either,  to  know  whether  every  woman  in  this  au- 
dience wants  to  vote.  Some  of  you  were  saying  to-day, 
in  these  very  seats,  —  coming  here  out  of  mere  curiosity, 
to  see  what  certain  fanatics  could  find  to  say,  —  "  Why, 
I  don't  want  any  more  rights;  I  have  rights  enough." 
Many  a  lady  whose  husband  is  what  he  ought  to  be, 
feeling  no  want  unsupplied,  is  ready  to  say,  "  I  have  all 
the  rights  I  want."  So  the  daughter  of  Louis  XVI., 
in  the  troublous  times  of  1791,  when  somebody  told  her 
that  the  people  were  starving  in  the  streets  of  Paris,  ex- 
claimed, "  What  fools  !  I  would  eat  bread  first! "  Thus, 
wealth,  comfort,  and  ease  say,  "  I  have  rights  enough." 
Nobody  doubted  it,  Madam !  But  the  question  is  not  of 
you ;  the  question  is  of  some  houseless  wife  of  a  drunk- 
ard ;  the  question  is  of  some  ground-down  daughter  of 
toil,  whose  earnings  are  filched  from  her  by  the  rum- 
debts  of  a  selfishness  wl\ich  the  law  makes  to  have  a 
right  over  her,  in  the  person  of  a  husband.  The  ques- 
tion is  not  of  you,  it  is  of  some  friendless  woman  of 
twenty,  standing  at  the  door  of  the  world,  educated, 
capable,  desirous  of  serving  her  time  and  her  race,  and 
saying,  "  Where  shall  I  use  these  talents  ?  How  shall 
I  earn  bread?"  And  Orthodox  society,  cabined  and 
cribbed  in  Saint  Paul,  cries  out,  "Go  sew,  jade!  We 
have  no  other  channel  for  you.  Go  to  the  needle,  or  wear 
yourself  to  death  as  a  school-mistress."  We  come  here 
to  endeavor  to  convince  you,  and  so  to  shape  our  insti- 
tutions that  public  opinion,  following  in  the  wake,  shall 
be  willing  to  open  channels  for  the  agreeable  and  profit- 
able occupation  of  women  as  much  as  for  men. 


120  SUFFRAGE   FOR   WOMAN. 

People  blame  the  shirt-makers  and  tailors  because  they 
pay  two  cents  where  they  ought  to  pay  fifty.  It  is  not 
their  fault ;  they  are  nothing  but  the  weather-cocks,  and 
society  is  the  wind.  Trade  does  not  grow  out  of  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount ;  merchants  never  have  any  hearts, 
they  have  only  ledgers ;  two  per  cent  a  month  is  their 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  a  balance  on  the  wrong  side 
of  the  ledger  is  their  demonstration.  [Laughter.]  No- 
body finds  fault  with  them  for  it ;  everything  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  its  life.  A  man  pays  as  much  for 
making  shirts  or  coats  as  it  is  necessary  to  pay,  and  he 
would  be  a  fool  and  a  bankrupt  if  he  paid  any  more. 
He  needs  only  a  hundred  work- women ;  there  are  a 
thousand  women  standing  at  his  door  saying,  "  Give  us 
work ;  and  if  it  is  worth  ten  cents  to  do  it,  we  will  do 
it  for  two ; "  and  a  hundred  get  the  work,  and  nine  hun- 
dred are  turned  into  the  street,  to  drag  down  this  city 
into  the  pit  that  it  deserves.  [Loud  applause.] 

Now,  what  is  the  remedy  ?  To  take  that  tailor  by  the 
throat  and  gibbet  him  in  the  New  York  Tribune  ?  Not 
at  all;  it  does  the  women  no  good,  and  he  does  not 
deserve  it.  I  will  tell  you  what  is  to  be  done.  Let  pub- 
lic opinion  only  grant  that,  like  their  thousand  brothers, 
those  thousand  women  may  go  out,  and  wherever  they 
find  work  to  do,  do  it  without  a  stigma  being  set  upon 
them.  Let  the  educated  girl  of  twenty  have  the  same 
liberty  to  use  the  pen,  to  practise  law,  to  write  books, 
to  serve  in  a  library,  to  tend  in  a  gallery  of  art,  to  do 
anything  that  her  brother  can  do. 

This  is  all  we  claim ;  and  we  claim  the  ballot  for  this 
reason  :  the  moment  you  give  woman  power,  that  mo- 
ment men  will  see  to  it  that  she  has  the  way  cleared  for 
her.  There  are  two  sources  of  power,  —  one  is  civil,  the 
ballot ;  the  other  is  physical,  the  rifle.  I  do  not  believe 


SUFFRAGE    FOR   WOMAN.  121 

that  the  upper  classes,  —  education,  wealth,  aristocracy, 
conservatism,  —  the  men  that  are  in,  ever  yielded  ex- 
cept to  fear.  I  think  the  history  of  the  race  shows 
that  the  upper  classes  never  granted  a  privilege  to  the 
1  lower  out  of  love.  As  Jeremy  Bentham  says,  "  the  upper 
:  classes  never  yielded  a  privilege  without  being  bullied 
out  of  it."  When  man  rises  in  revolution,  with  the 
sword  in  his  right  hand,  trembling  wealth  and  conser- 
vatism say,  "  What  do  you  want  ?  Take  it ;  but  grant 
me  my  life."  The  Duke  of  Tuscany,  Elizabeth  Barrett 
Browning  has  told  us,  swore  to  a  dozen  constitutions 
when  the  Tuscans  stood  armed  in  the  streets  of  Flor- 
ence, and  he  forgot  them  when  the  Austrians  came  in 
and  took  the  rifles  out  of  the  Tuscan's  hands.  You 
must  force  the  upper  classes  to  do  justice  by  physical 
or  some  other  power.  The  age  of  physical  power  is 
gone,  and  we  want  to  put  ballots  into  the  hands  of 
women.  We  do  not  wait  for  women  to  ask  for  them. 
When  1  argue  the  Temperance  Question,  I  do  not  go 
down  to  the  drunkard  and  ask,  "  Do  you  want  a  pro- 
hibitory law  ? "  I  know  what  is  good  for  him  a  great 
deal  better  than  he  does.  [Applause.]  When  I  meet 
an  ignorant  set  of  boys  in  the  street,  I  don't  say,  "  My 
poor  little  ignoramuses,  would  you  like  to  have  a  sys- 
tem of  public  schools  ? "  I  know  a  great  deal  better 
what  is  good  for  them  than  they  do.  Our  fathers  es- 
tablished public  schools  before  dunces  asked  for  them. 

What  proves  the  clearest  woman's  need  of  the  ballot  ? 
Why,  the  very  inertness  and  ignorance  which  the  lack 
of  it  has  caused  her.  Like  all  other  injustice  and  slav- 
ery, its  worst  effect  is  that  it  weakens,  degrades,  and 
darkens  its  victims,  till  they  no  longer  realize  the  harm 
done  them.  Wasted  on  trifles,  cramped  by  routine,  lack- 
ing the  stir  and  breadth  which  interest  in  great  ques- 
tions gives,  many  women  grope  or  flutter  on,  ignorant  of 


122  SUFFRAGE   FOR   WOMAN. 

the  real  cause  that  saddens  their  life,  burdens  their  toil, 
starves  their  nature,  and  sows  their  path  with  thorns. 
Those  whom  circumstances  have  lifted  to  broader  views 
must   not   wait   for   her   request   before   they    open   to 
woman  the  advantages  by  which  they  have  profited  so 
much.    Besides,  we  lose  half  our  resources  when  we  shut 
women  out  from  beneath  the  influence  of  these  elements 
•'  of  growth.     God  gives  us  the  whole  race  with  its  varied 
"endowments,  man  and  woman,  one  the  complement  of 
(J;he  other,  on  which  to  base  civilization.     We  starve  our- 
selves by  using  in  civil  affairs  only  half  —  only  one  sex. 
I  spoke  a  year  ago  of  the  stride  literature  made  when 
women  began  to  write  and  read.     Politics  will  reap  as 
great  a  gain  when  she  enters  its  field. 

I  mean  to  get  the  ballot  for  women  —  why  ?  Because 
•*'. Republicanism  demands  it;  because  the  theory  of  our 
institutions  demands  it ;  because  the  moral  health  of 
the  country  demands  it.  What  is  our  Western  civiliza- 
tion in  this  State  of  New  York,  in  this  city  of  New  York  ? 
A  failure !  As  Humboldt  well  said,  as  Earl  Gray  has 
said  in  the  House  of  Lords,  u  The  experiment  of  Amer- 
ican government  is  a  failure  to-day."  It  cannot  be 
denied.  If  this  is  the  best  that  free  institutions  can  do, 
then  just  as  good,  and  a  great  deal  better,  can  be  done 
by  despotism.  The  city  of  Paris  to-day,  with  but  one 
will  in  it,  that  of  Napoleon,  spends  less,  probably,  than 
the  city  of  New  York  spends,  and  the  results  are,  com- 
fort, safety,  health,  quiet,  peace,  beauty,  civilization. 
New  York,  governed  by  brothels  and  grog-shops,  spends 
twenty-five  per  cent  more,  and  the  results  are,  murder, 
drunkenness,  rowdyism,  unsafety,  dirt,  and  disgrace  !  I 
think  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  despotism  in 
that  point  of  view.  I  weigh  Paris,  the  representative 
of  despotism,  against  New  York,  the  representative  of 
"  Young  America,"  and  New  York  kicks  the  beam.  No 


SUFFRAGE    FOR    WOMAN.  12o 

man  can  deny  it.  It  is  a  failure  on  two  grounds,  —  it  is 
a  failure,  because  the  law  of  political  economy  has  given 
to  man  good  wages,  and  science  has  invented  for  him 
drink  cheap  as  water,  and  held  it  to  his  lips,  and  said, 
"  Make  a  brute  of  yourself !  " 

Intemperance,  that  gigantic  foe  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion, is  the  chasm  in  the  forum  which  seems  destined 
to  swallow  up  the  capacity  of  self-government.  In  the 
olden  times,  wine  was  dear,  and  only  the  upper  classes 
could  afford  to  get  drunk.  Around  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean,  the  stimulus  of  the  stomach  was  no 
temptation  ;  their  climate  tempted  men  on  a  different 
side.  We  are  Saxons,  our  blood  aches  for  a  stimulus, 
by  way  of  the  stomach  —  appetite  !  Our  idea  of  heaven 
is  the  skulls  of  our  enemies,  flowing  over  with  rich  wine. 
That  is  the  blood  that  courses  in  our  veins.  In  our 
streets,  science  pours  out  her  drink  like  water.  Politi- 
cal economy  puts  in  every  man's  hand,  by  the  labor  of 
half  a  day,  money  enough  to  be  drunk  a  week. 

There  is  one  temptation,  dragging  down  the  possi- 
bility of  self-government  into  the  pit  of  imbruted 
humanity ;  and  on  the  other  side,  is  that  hideous  prob- 
lem of  modern  civilized  life  —  prostitution  —  born  of 
Orthodox  scruples  and  aristocratic  fastidiousness ;  born 
of  that  fastidious  denial  of  the  right  of  woman  to  choose 
her  own  work,  and,  like  her  brother,  to  satisfy  her  am- 
bition, her  love  of  luxury,  her  love  of  material  gratifica 
tions,  by  fair  wages  for  fair  work.  As  long  as  you  deny 
it,  as  long  as  the  pulpit  covers  with  its  fastidious  Ortho- 
doxy this  question  from  the  consideration  of  the  public, 
it  is  but  a  concealed  brothel,  although  it  calls  itself  an 
Orthodox  pulpit.  [Applause  and  hisses.]  I  know  what 
I  say  ;  your  hisses  cannot  change  it.  Go,  clean  out  the 
Gehenna  of  New  York!  [Applause.]  Go,  sweep  the 
Augean  stable  that  makes  New  York  the  lazar-house 


124  SUFFRAGE    FOR   WOMAN. 

i  f  corruption !  You  know  that  on  one  side  or  the  other 
cf  these  temptations  lies  very  much  of  the  evil  of  modern 
civilized  life.  You  know  that  before  them,  statesman- 
ship folds  its  hands  in  despair.  Here  is  a  method  by 
which  to  take  care  of  at  least  one.  Give  men  fair  wages, 
and  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  will  disdain  to  steal. 
The  way  to  prevent  dishonesty  is  to  let  every  man  have 
a  field  for  his  work,  and  honest  wages ;  the  way  to  pre- 
vent licentiousness  is  to  give  to  woman's  capacity  free 
play.  Give  to  the  higher  powers  activity,  and  they  will 
choke  down  the  animal.  The  man  who  loves  thinking, 
disdains  to  be  the  victim  of  appetite.  It  is  a  law  of  our 
nature.  Give  a  hundred  women  honest  wages  for  ca- 
picity  and  toil,  and  ninety-nine  will  disdain  to  win  it  by 
vice.  That  is  the  cure  for  licentiousness.  [Applause.] 
I  wish  to  put  into  our  civil  life  the  element  of  woman's 
right  to  shape  the  laws,  for  all  our  social  life  copies 
largely  from  the  statute-book.  Let  woman  dictate  at 
the  Capital,  let  her  say  to  Wall  Street,  "  My  votes  on 
finance  are  to  make  stocks  rise  and  fall;"  and  Wall 
Street  will  say  to  Columbia  College,  "  Open  your  classes 
to  woman ;  it  needs  be  that  she  should  learn."  The 
moment  you  give  her  the  ballot,  you  take  bonds  of 
wealth  and  fashion  and  conservatism,  that  they  will 
educate  this  power  which  is  holding  their  interest  in 
its  right  hand.  1  want  to  spike  the  gun  of  selfishness  ; 
or  rather,  1  want  to  double-shot  the  cannon  of  selfish- 
ness. Let  Wall  Street  say,  "  Look  you  !  whether  the 
New  York  Central  stock  shall  have  a  toll  placed  upon 
it,  whether  my  million  shares  shall  be  worth  sixty  cents 
in  the  market  or  eighty,  depends  upon  whether  certain 
women  up  there  at  Albany  know  the  laws  of  trade  and 
the  secrets  of  political  economy,"  —  and  Wall  Street  \vill 
say,  "  Get  out  of  the  way,  Dr.  Adams  !  Absent  yourself 
Dr.  Spring  !  We  don't  care  for  Jewish  prejudices ;  these 


SUFFRAGE    FOR    WOMAN.  125 

women  must  have  education  !  "  [Loud  applause.]  Sho\y; 
me  the  necessity  in  civil  life,  and  I  will  find  you  forty 
thousand  pulpits  that  will  say  Saint  Paul  meant  just  that. 
[Renewed  applause.]  Now,  I  am  Orthodox;  I  believ? 
in  the  Bible  ;  I  reverence  Saint  Paul ;  I  believe  his  was 
the  most  masterly  intellect  that  God  ever  gave  to  the 
race ;  I  believe  he  was  the  connecting  link,  the  bridge, 
by  which  the  Asiatic  and  European  mind  were  joined  ; 
I  believe  that  Plato  ministers  at  his  feet,  —  but  after  all 
he  was  a  man,  and  not  God.  [Applause.]  He  was 
limited,  and  liable  to  mistake.  You  cannot  anchor  this 
Western  continent  to  the  Jewish  footstool  of  Saint  Paul ; 
and  after  all,  that  is  the  difficulty,  —  religious  prejudice. 
It  is  not  the  fashion,  —  we  shall  beat  it;  it  is  not  the 
fastidiousness  of  the  exquisite, —  we  shall  smother  it; 
it  is  the  religious  prejudice,  borrowed  from  a  mistaken 
interpretation  of  the  New  Testament.  That  is  the  real 
Gibraltar  with  which  we  are  to  grapple,  and  my  argu- 
ment with  that  is  simply  this, — you  left  it  when  you 
founded  a  republic ;  you  left  it  when  you  inaugu- 
rated Western  civilization  ;  we  must  grow  out  of  one 
root. 

I  congratulate  you,  as  friends  of  this  cause,  on  the 
progress  of  the  last  twelve  months.  You  know  that 
when  you  look  at  a  barometer  on  a  common  sunshiny 
day,  you  must  furnish  yourself  with  an  infinitesimal 
point  of  brass,  and  a  machinery  of  delicate  wheels  to 
move  it  a  small  atom  of  space,  sufficient  to  measure  the 
changes  of  the  quicksilver.  But  when  you  are  in  the 
East  India  seas,  and  the  monsoon  is  about  to  blow,  or 
the  tempest  is  about  to  sweep  the  surface  of  the  waters, 
the  barometer  will  jump  an  inch,  or  fall  down  an  inch, 
according  as  the  change  is  to  be.  You  need  no  ma- 
chinery then,  when  a  storm  is  coming  that  will  lift  your 


126  SUFFRAGE    FOR    WOMAN. 

ship  out  of  the  very  sea  itself.  I  think,  that  in  the 
twenty  years  that  have  gone  by,  we  have  had  the  little, 
infinitesimally  minute  changes  of  the  barometer ;  but 
the  New  York  Legislature  has  risen  a  full  inch  in  the 
moral  barometer  the  last  twelve  months.  [Applause.] 
It  is  a  proof  that  the  monsoon  is  coming  that  will  lift 
the  old  conservative  ship,  carrying  the  idea  that  woman 
is  a  drudge  and  a  slave,  out  of  the  waters,  and  dash  her 
into  fragments  on  the  surface  of  our  democratic  sea. 
In  a  few  years  more,  I  do  not  know  but  we  shall  dis- 
band, and  watch  these  women  to  the  ballot-box,  to  see 
that  they  do  their  duty.  [Applause.]  You  will  have 
your  State  Constitution  to  change  in  five  or  six  years. 
Use  such  meetings  as  these,  and  perhaps  the  Empire 
State  will  earn  its  title  by  inaugurating  the  great  move- 
ment becoming  democratic  and  Saxon  civilization,  by 
throwing  open  civil  life  to  woman.  I  hope  it  may  be  so. 
Let  us  go  out  and  labor  that  it  shall  be  so. 

Let  me,  in  closing,  show  you  by  one  single  anecdote, 
how  mean  a  thing  a  man  can  be.  You  have  heard  of 
Mrs.  Norton,  "  the  woman  Byron,"  as  critics  call  her, 
the  grand-daughter  of  Sheridan,  and  the  one  on  whose 
shoulders  his  mantle  has  rested,  —  a  genius  by  right  of 
inheritance  and  by  God's  own  gift.  Perhaps  you  may 
remember  that  when  the  Tories  wanted  to  break  down 
the  reform  administration  of  Lord  Melbourne,  they 
brought  her  husband  to  feign  to  believe  his  wife  unfaith- 
ful, and  to  sue  her  before  a  jury.  He  did  so,  brought 
an  action,  and  an  English  jury  said  she  was  innocent; 
and  his  own  counsel  has  since  admitted  in  writing,  under 
his  own  signature,  that  during  the  time  he  prosecuted 
that  trial,  the  Honorable  Mr.  Norton  (for  so  he  is  in  the 
Herald's  Book),  confessed  all  the  time  that  he  did  not 
believe  a  word  against  his  wife,  and  knew  she  was  in- 


SUFFRAGE   FOR   WOMAN.  127 

nocent.  She  is  a  writer ;  the  profits  of  her  books,  by 
the  law  of  England,  belong  to  her  husband.  She  has  not 
lived  with  him  — of  course  not,  for  she  is  a  woman  !  — 
since  that  trial ;  but  the  brute  goes  every  six  months  to 
John  Murray,  and  eats  the  profits  of  the  brain  of  the 
wife  whom  he  tried  to  disgrace.  [Loud  cries  of  "  Shame, 
shame  ! "]  And  the  law  of  England  says  it  is  right ; 
the  Orthodox  pulpit  says,  "  If  you  change  it,  it  will  be 
the  pulling  down  of  the  stars  and  Saint  Paul."  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  Honorable  Mr.  Norton  is  half  as  near  to 
the  mind  of  Saint  Paul  as  the  Honorable  Mrs.  Norton.  I 
believe,  therefore,  in  woman  having  the  right  to  her 
brain,  to  her  hands,  to  her  toil,  to  her  ballot.  "  The  tools 
to  him  that  can  use  them  —  "  and  let  God  settle  the  rest. 
If  He  made  it  just  that  we  should  have  democratic  in- 
stitutions, then  lie  made  it  just  that  everybody  who  is  to 
suffer  under  the  law  should  have  a  voice  in  making  it ; 
and  if  it  is  indelicate  for  women  to  vote,  then  let  Him 
stop  making  women  [applause  and  laughter],  because 
republicanism  and  such  women  are  inconsistent.  I  say 
it  reverently  ;  and  I  only  say  it  to  show  you  the  absurdity. 
Why,  my  dear  man  and  woman,  we  are  not  to  help  God 
govern  the  world  by  telling  lies  !  He  can  take  care  of 
it  himself.  If  He  made  it  just,  you  may  be  certain  that 
He  saw  to  it  that  it  should  be  delicate  ;  and  you  need 
not  insert  your  little  tiny  roots  of  fastidious  delicacy 
into  the  great  giant  rifts  of  God's  world,  —  they  are  only 
in  the  way.  [Applause.] 


WOMAN'S   EIGHTS   AND   WOMAN'S 
DUTIES. 


Address  delivered  hi  New  York  City,  May  10,  1866. 

T  ADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  I  am  very  glad  that  all 
L'  that  will  be  required  of  me  this  morning,  is  to 
answer  to  the  roll-call, —  to  say  "Yes"  to  my  name. 
You  know  you  cannot  have  more  than  the  whole  of  a 
subject.  That  is  not  possible.  I  have  only  had  the 
pleasure  of  listening  to  the  last  address,  by  our  friend 
Henry  Ward  Beecher ;  and  I  think  if  he  had  left  a  sug- 
gestion unmade,  or  any  part  of  the  field  unexplored,  I 
would  have  made  an  effort  to  supply  the  omission.  But 
as  I  watched  him  step  by  step,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
General  Grant  could  riot  have  covered  his  camp  and  his 
lines  more  effectually,  from  centre  to  outpost.  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  said  once  that  there  was  always  a 
representative  man  who  went  out  of  every  lecture-room 
at  a  certain  period,  at  all  seasons  of  the  year,  and  in  all 
parts  of  the  country.  The  lyceum  lecturers  held  a  con- 
sultation to  learn  the  cause,  and  Holmes,  being  a  surgeon, 
performed  an  autopsy,  and  found  that  the  reason  was 
that  the  man's  brain  was  full ;  and  when  he  came  to 
that  state,  he  went  out.  I  think  you  must  all  have  come 
to  that  state.  There  is  no  speech  left  for  us  who  fol- 
low to  make  ;  but  I  hope  you  will  allow  me  a  single 
suggestion. 


WOMAN'S  RIGHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES.          129 

I  think  our  friend  touched  the  very  kernel  of  the 
whole  subject  when  he  reminded  you  that  suffrage  was 
not  alone  woman's  right,  but  woman's  duty.  I  believe 
that  to  confer  the  ballot  will  add  but  little  to  the 
influence  of  woman.  I  am  interested  in  this  question, 
because  I  wish  to  put  recognized  power  where  there 
already  exists  unrecognized  influence.  I  think  unre- 
cognized influence  is  always  dangerous.  It  acts  under 
no  adequate  sense  of  responsibility.  Society  does  not 
attempt  to  check  it.  It  is  unheeded  and  unwatched. 
Consequently  it  is  always  doubly  liable  to  corruption. 

I  believe  that  to-day  it  may  be  said,  more  truly  than 
of  any  other  cause  in  our  social  philosophy,  that  woman 
rules  the  State.  What  made  the  Southern  rebellion  ? 
Woman  did  not  make  it ;  but  without  the  enthusiasm  and 
the  frenzy  of  women  on  its  side,  it  never  could  have  been 
made.  What  was  the  potent  influence  that  almost  tore 
the  Republic  asunder?  Woman's.  Yet  that  wide-spread, 
deep-anchored  force  had  swayed  the  Southern  mind  for 
years,  —  under  no  sense  of  civil  responsibility,  neither 
watched  nor  educated,  never  in  the  eye  of  day,  never 
feeling  that  it  was  doing  anything  which  needed  to  be 
summoned  before  the  tribunal  of  conscience. 

Our  friend  said  that  if  woman  could  vote,  she  would 
shut  up  the  groggeries  of  this  city.  She  could  shut  them 
up  to-day.  Albany  is  nothing  compared  with  fashion. 
What  is  the  legislature  compared  with  the  ton  that  per- 
meates society,  —  the  throne  that  woman  first  founded, 
and  has  ever  since. filled?  More  than  college,  stronger 
than  church,  weightier  than  trade,  more  controlling  than 
all  put  together,  woman  is  its  recognized  queen.  If  she 
issued  her  edict  to-day,  unfaltering,  unmixed,  undoubt- 
irig,  there  could  nought  but  submission  follow.  A  vote 
is  a  great  thing ;  legislation  is  a  large  power,  —  but 
money  is  a  larger  power.  Why  do  not  women  make 

9 


130          WOMAN'S  RIGHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES. 

money  ?  They  have  the  faculty.  The  brother  comes 
into  this  city  ;  no  man  knows  his  name ;  his  purse  is 
empty;  his  word  would  not  be  worth  five  dollars,  and 
his  opinion  less  ;  he  lives  here  a  dozen  years,  walks 
up  and  down  Wall  Street,  and  finally  his  name  counts 
for  millions.  Why  was  it  ?  He  clutched  at  all  the 
opportunities  which  society  gave  him  ;  he  made  himself 
a  force  ;  he  garnered  around  himself  the  influences  of 
life  and  business  connections.  Why  should  not  woman  ? 
Albany  does  not  hinder  her.  There  is  nothing  on  the 
statute-book  to  forbid.  One  large,  ugly,  irreconcilable 
fact  of  a  woman  worth  ten  millions  by  her  own  toil, 
would  be  worth  quartos  of  statute-books.  Why  does 
she  not  make  it?  Because  you  do  not  let  her  ;  because 
it  is  reputable  for  a  boy  to  go  and  make  money,  and  it 
is  not  reputable  for  his  sister ;  because  fashion  says  to 
the  girl  that  earns  her  own  bread,  "  You  are  tabooed  ; " 
while  fashion  says  to  the  boy  that  does  not  earn  his  own 
bread,  "You  are  a  poppinjay."  The  consequence  is  that 
one  earns  his  own  bread,  and  his  place  in  the  world's 
panorama  besides  ;  the  other  lacks  it.  Where  is  the 
remedy  ?  You  cannot  be  legislated  into  it.  Nothing  can 
help  you  up  at  Albany.  No  ballot-box  will  help  you,  ex- 
cept indirectly.  Issue  your  edict. 

The  medical  profession  is  full  of  prizes.  The  men 
that  gain  them  occupy  a  large  space  before  the  world. 
Why  does  not  woman  obtain  some  of  them  ?  Why  does 
she  not  clutch  the  largest  culture  and  discipline,  and 
gain  the  greatest  prizes  ?  If  every  woman  said,  "  When 
I  need,  in  extremest  peril,  the  aid  of  science,  I  will  take 
it  only  at  a  sister's  hand,"  do  you  suppose  there  is  a 
college  in  the  broad  United  States  that  would  dare  to 
shut  the  doors  of  its  opportunities  against  a  woman  ? 
Not  for  an  hour. 

I  want  to  urge  it  upon  your  attention  that  large  as  is 


WOMAN'S  RIGHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES.          131 

the  ballot,  broad  as  legislation  is,  behind  it  are  broader 
opportunities  and  a  larger  influence ;  and  the  only  thing 
that  blocks  the  door  to  those  paths  is  your  opinion,— 
an  opinion  that  you  can  change.  The  edict  of  woman's 
decisive  opinion  will  close  the  groggeries  of  New  York 
City  much  quicker  than  the  metropolitan  police  can  close 
them. 

The  singularity  of  this  cause  is  that  it  has  to  be 
argued  against  the  wishes  and  purposes  of  its  victims. 
The  slave  stood  behind  us,  the  irresistible  pulsations  of 
his  heart  agonizing  for  his  rights.  The  unrepresented 
millions  of  England  swell  the  voice  of  John  Bright;  and 
as  our  friend  told  us,  Aristocracy  trembles  before  their 
half-uttered  wish.  But  when  you  come  to  the  Woman 
Question,  the  first  great  abiding  difficulty  is  that  woman 
is  herself  the  obstacle,  —  that  she  fills  the  chair  most 
potent  and  irresistible  in  this  discussion,  that  of  popular 
opinion,  and  she  utters  her  verdict  against  us.  I  would 
not  belittle  the  ballot,  nor  fail  to  appreciate  legislation ; 
but  I  would  remind  woman  that  legislation  is  but  a 
circumstance  in  the  broad  circle  of  the  forces  that 
make  and  mould  civil  power.  Business,  professional 
distinction  in  society,  education,  —  these  are  as  much 
the  elemental  creators  of  our  civilization  as  the  law- 
book.  Indeed,  the  law-book  is  nothing  but  the  vane  on 
the  steeple,  and  these  are  the  winds  that  set  its  direction. 
So  when  we  find  fault  with  the  prejudices  of  this  class 
or  that,  against  conferring  the  ballot,  it  is  to  be  remem- 
bered that  after  all,  in  the  largest  and  most  emphatic 
sense,  it  is  woman  herself  who  is  against  us.  Some- 
times they  say,  "  That  is  very  true  ;  but  do  you 
expect  us  to  initiate  an  opinion  on  this  subject  while 
man  remains  unconvinced  ?"  That  argument  acknowl- 
edges your  inferiority. 

The  course  of  the  world's  history  is,  first,  the  govern- 


132          WOMAN'S  RIGHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES. 

ment  of  force  ;  first,  brute  strength.  An  old  Hindoo 
dreamed  that  he  saw  the  human  race  led  out  to  its 
varied  fortunes.  And  first,  he  saw  men  bitted  and 
curbed ;  and  the  reins  were  of  iron,  and  went  back  to 
an  iron  hand.  And  he  dreamed  on,  the  legend  says, 
until  he  saw  men  led  by  invisible  threads  that  came 
from  the  brain  and  went  back  to  an  unseen  hand.  The 
first  was  the  government  of  force ;  the  last  was  the 
government  of  ideas.  In  this  government  of  ideas,  in 
the  struggle  upward,  we  have  something  more  noble 
than  selfish  interests  or  party  averages  to  govern  the 
country.  Woman's  brain,  if  our  cause  rests  on  a  sound 
and  enduring  basis,  is  to  be  as  prompt  and  influential  in 
establishing  the  future  as  man's.  There  have  been  but 
five  or  six  times  in  the  history  of  France  when  fashion 
in  the  salons  of  Paris  would  not  have  unseated  any  king ; 
yet  woman  never  had  a  vote.  When  Napoleon  banished 
Madame  de  Stael  from  France,  he  acknowledged  the 
power  of  the  throne  she  filled,  and  that  his  could  not 
withstand  her  influence.  If  the  genius  of  Madame  de 
Stael  is  the  representative  to  any  extent  of  the  force 
that  woman  can  wield  in  modern  society,  then  this  cause 
rests  upon  you  first,  and  almost  last  upon  fashion.  A 
sneer  at  woman's  making  her  living,  a  lack  of  recog- 
nition because  she  earns  her  bread,  just  that  flavor  of 
unfashionableness  which  work  stamps  upon  woman,  — 
in  that  impalpable,  almost  invisible,  indescribable  power, 
is  the  magic  that  binds  Albany  in  the  chains  of  male 
legislation. 

The  legislator  votes  from  the  streets  of  New  York. 
You  may  as  well  attempt  to  whisper  back  Niagara  as 
to  change  this  by  legislation ;  yet  there  are  forces  that 
can  change  it.  The  very  force  that  gave  it  food  can 
give  it  poison.  The  sister  comes  to  New  York.  The 
prizes  of  life  are  before  her,  and  her  brother  wins 


WOMAN'S  RIGHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES.          133 

them,  —  large  wages,  ample  opportunities,  breadth  for 
development,  every  career  open, —  lie  takes  them.  He 
smothers  the  first  stimulus  to  vice,  and  cultivates  ambi- 
tion. If  he  fails  once  or  twice  he  gets  up  again,  and 
having  driven  out  of  the  chamber  the  Devil,  he  fills  it 
with  honorable  aspirations,  with  ambition  to  be  worthy 
of  his  father,  and  to  do  something  for  the  world  into 
which  God  has  sent  him.  The  sister  comes  into  the 
city,  and  she  finds  starvation  wages,  —  wages  at  such  a 
rate  that  they  offer  no  rise  even  in  the  future  to  what 
her  soul  aspires  to.  Vice  comes  with  gilded  hand,  clad 
in  velvet,  attended  with  luxury,  in  the  chariot  of  ease, 
and  says,  "  An  hour,  and  all  this  is  yours." 

Give  men  honest  wages,  and  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hun- 
dred will  disdain  to  steal.  Give  woman  what  the  same 
labor  gives  to  man,  and  ninety-nine  out  of  one  hundred 
will  disdain  to  purchase  it  by  vice.  [Applause.]  But  you 
will  never  fill  up  that  grave  until  you  enable  women  to 
stand  before  the  competition  of  the  crowded  streets  of  this 
city  and  make  their  choice  as  men  do,  —  not  crowded  by 
your  religious  bigotry,  born  of  a  mistaken  and  ideal  Saint 
Paul,  or  a  fastidiousness  which  will  not  allow  women  to 
work  into  a  few  occupations,  but  with  every  door  open 
to  them.  Let  the  fifty  thousand  women  that  must  earn 
a  living  have  a  choice  of  five  hundred  occupations,  and 
dictate  terms,  instead  of  standing  trembling  at  the  doors, 
and  taking  work  at  one  tenth  the  price  of  male  labor. 
Then  you  cure  vice  because  you  withhold  the  food  upon 
which  it  lives.  Legislation  cannot  do  that.  You  cannot 
legislate  the  tailor  into  high  wages,  when  a  thousand 
needle-girls  stand  at  his  door  begging  for  the  work  of 
which  he  has  only  enough  to  fill  the  hands  of  a  hundred. 
The  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  put  into  the  statute-book, 
would  not  change  it  a  half-cent  ;  but  if  fashion,  re- 
spectability, and  the  public  opinion  of  a  kind  sisterhood 


134          WOMAN'S  RIGHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES. 

will  say  to  those  thousands  of  girls:  "It  shall  be  as 
honorable  to  you,  no  matter  where  you  earn  your  bread, 
as  it  is  to  your  brother.  We  trample  mistaken  Judaism 
under  one  foot,  and  our  absurdly  ideal  Saint  Paul  under 
the  other;  nothing  to  us  is  the  old,  false,  so-called  deli- 
cacy, which  was  the  Moloch  to  which  religious  bigotry 
and  mistaken  opinion  offered  up  the  virtue  of  two  thirds 
of  the  sisterhood.  In  spite  of  all,  go  out;  earn  your 
living  in  some  two  hundred  or  five  hundred  vocations." 
Then,  at  his  door,  the  tailor  will  find  fifty  women  when 
he  wants  a  hundred,  and  they  will  dictate  terms  from 
the  outside,  instead  of  he  from  within. 

Albany  cannot  help  you.  Political  economy  cannot 
help  you.  Help  never  will  come  while  shrinking  woman 
tries  to  save  respectability  by  clinging  to  the  needle,  and 
labors  only  in  the  secrecy  of  home.  Gild  her  pathway 
with  your  approbation,  no  matter  where  she  walks  in 
honest  business.  [Applause.]  Greet  her  with  the  most 
honorable  recognition,  no  matter  what  she  does,  provided 
it  be  what  her  brother  might  do, —  an  honorable  man 
under  the  same  circumstances.  That  immedicable  wound 
of  a  great  city,  that  social  vice  before  which  modern  civ- 
ilization stands  aghast,  unable  even  to  suggest  a  remedy, 
will  lie  helpless  and  conquered  in  the  hands  of  a  correct 
public  opinion,  that  shall  allow  woman  to  make  her  way 
upward  to  ease,  to  honor,  to  wealth,  to  all  that  the  hu- 
man soul  craves,  unchecked  by  morbid  fashion  ;  and  it 
is  you  that  make  public  opinion. 

The  tempter  to  vice  in  the  streets  of  New  York  is  not 
the  roue ;  it  is  the  absurdly  fastidious,  the  bigotedly 
religious  sister  that  lives  in  a  warm  mansion  within 
half  a  mile.  [Applause.]  She  is  the  one  that  binds 
the  limbs  that  God  made  alert,  and  the  powers  that 
God  made  strong,  and  hands  the  victim  over  to  the 
utmost  control  of  the  tempter.  Go  home  and  reform 


WOMAN'S  RICHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES.          185 

yourself;  go  home  and  let  there  emanate  from  each 
one  of  you  that  influence  in  society  which  is  the  cradle 
of  the  realm,  —  at  once  the  creature  and  the  creator  of 
public  opinion,  the  spur  and  the  reward  which  gathers 
into  its  broad  circle  all  the  influences  of  modern  civili- 
zation of  which  Greece  and  Rome  knew  nothing,  which 
even  the  New  Testament,  with  its  manhood  and  equality, 
could  not  produce,  which  took  its  birth  in  Paris,  born  of 
a  woman's  edict,  living  solely  by  the  inspiration  of  the 
.sex, — more  potent  in  shaping  the  literature,  the  religion, 
and  the  policy  of  the  last  two  centuries  than  any  other 
force. 

We  have  adequate  illustration  of  the  effect  that  I  am 
prophesying.  Take  literature,  for  instance,  to  which 
allusion  has  been  made.  Woman  is  an  equal  in  the 
literary  republic ;  genius  knows  no  sex.  Men  count 
women  as  readers,  —  even  more  of  women  than  of  busy 
men.  What  is  the  result  ?  The  literature  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  that  was  not  readable,  that  had  to  be  expurgated, 
is  lifted  to  a  higher  level ;  its  tone  is  broader,  and  its 
perception  finer ;  it  is  the  diapason  of  the  instrument 
before  which  the  classicism  of  Greece  and  Rome  was 
heavy  and  dull.  Woman's  influence  is  felt  in  literature, 
and  what  is  the  result  ?  As  much  as  the  average  level 
of  the  race  will  permit,  literature  is  the  proof  that  there 
are  some  dark  lines  to  be  added. 

Potent  and  equal  in  this,  as  woman  has  been,  there  is 
much  yet  to  be  cured.  Give  woman  the  ballot,  and  I  do 
not  count  on  the  millennium  the  next  day.  No ;  it  will 
come  very  gradually.  In  the  Church,  woman  has  had  a 
recognition,  but  not  an  equality.  Christianity  has  given 
her  much  more  than  the  law  did.  She  has  a  large  rep- 
resentation there,  and  to  some  extent  a  vote ;  but  her 
authority  is  anchored  two  hundred  years  behind  the 
nineteenth  century  in  spite  of  it.  It  did  not  save  the 


136          WOMAN'S  RIGHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES. 

Church ;  it  will  not  save  the  State.  The  Church  cut 
short  her  power,  and  limited  her  influence  much  more 
than  literature  has  done ;  and  her  marvellous  effect  is 
better  seen  in  the  literary  republic  than  in  the  religious. 
Both  show  the  almost  immeasurable  and  inexpressible 
potency  of  the  presence  of  this  element  of  public  opinion 
mingling  with  ours.  But  the  largest  symbol  of  what 
woman  can  do,  is  her  own  exclusive  sphere,  and  that  is 
fashion,  —  in  society,  omnipotent. 

I  do  not  blame  men  when  I  meet  them  full  of  preju- 
dice against  this  movement.  I  do  not  feel  by  any  means 
that  keen  agony  of  interest  in  this  question  that  I  did 
in  the  Slavery  Question.  I  do  not  feel  even  that  intense 
interest  that  I  did  in  the  Temperance  cause,  because  the 
drunkard  asked  us  to  help  him  in  the  effort  to  rise 
upon  his  feet ;  but  here  is  woman,  educated,  influential, 
walking  up  and  down  the  highways  of  society,  wielding 
enormous  influence,  corrupting  the  channels  of  politics 
to-day.  The  keenest  observer  of  French  politics  and 
French  society,  Tocqueville,  says  in  one  of  the  most 
suggestive  and  most  remarkable  of  all  his  letters,  that 
he  ascribes  the  treachery  of  some  of  the  first  leaders 
in  the  reform  movements  in  France,  to  the  influence  of 
wives  and  daughters  upon  husbands  and  brothers,  in- 
ducing them  to  use  the  positions  which  the  men  would 
have  used  for  principle^  for  their  own  private  advance- 
ment or  the  comfort  of  the  family.  "Yes,"  said  he, 
concluding  his  letter,  "  it  is  the  mothers  and  daughters 
of  France  that  have  wrecked  some  of  our  noblest  move- 
ments to  help  the  millions." 

Unrecognized  influence  which  ought  to  be  turned  into 
acknowledged  power,  exercised  in  the  light  of  day,  edu- 
cated, held  to  a  strict  responsibility,  rebuked,  criticised, 
held  up  to  scorn,  caricatured,  visited  with  well-deserved 
sarcasm,  made  to  feel  that  the  vice  and  corruption  of  party 


WOMAN'S  RIGHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES.          137 

and  society  are  not  by  any  means  exclusively  man's  fault, 
—  rests  upon  no  serious  or  earnest  difference  of  opinion, 
but  upon  sbades  of  fashion,  delicacy  of  taste,  fastidious 
sensibility,  and  other  absurdities,  and  to  that  we  offer 
up,  day  by  day,  the  virtue  of  society.  Lucretia  Mott,  at 
the  very  first  Woman's  Rights  Convention  assembled 
in  this  country  some  eighteen  years  ago,  bade  us  re- 
member that  it  would  not  be  men  that  would  be  our 
greatest  obstacles;  that  it  would  not  be  the  law-book; 
but  that  we  were  launching  a  cause  which  would  find  in 
the  besotted  opposition  of  its  own  victims  its  deadliest 
foe.  [Applause.]  That  has  not  ceased  to  be  true 
to-day. 

Remember  also  that  the  moment  you  issue  your  com- 
mand every  medical  college  will  be  open.  The  moment 
you  take  off  your  ban  every  avenue  of  trade  will  be 
trodden  by  women.  The  moment  you  make  known 
your  purpose  the  statute-book  will  record  your  verdict. 
Wives  and  daughters,  you  are  able  in  these  matters  to 
dictate  the  policy  of  your  fathers  and  husbands. 

In  Massachusetts,  we  owe  one  of  the  first  steps  toward 
the  recognition  of  woman's  right  to  property  to  the  selfish- 
ness of  fathers,  about  to  leave  their  daughters  dowered 
with  large  wealth,  and  unwilling  to  trust  it  ^o-  tffe 
chances  of  their  husbands'  character.  They  were  always 
anxious  to  put  it  into,  thWiands  of  trustees,  and  they 
found  thayriicn  \fere  very  much  averse,  even  when 
bidden  by  the  strongest  friendship,  to  undertake  a  long 
trust  on  account  of  its  dangers  and  responsibility.  The 
fathers  themselves  selected  the  most  conservative  lawyer 
at  the  Suffolk  bar  to  draw  the  statute,  than  which  we 
could  not  have  imagined  a  better,  which  secured  to 
wealthy  women  the  control  of  their  inherited  property, 
even  if  they  were  married. 

Again,  it  was  the  bank  interest  of  the  savings-bank 


138          WOMAN'S  RIGHTS  AND  WOMAN'S  DUTIES. 

of  the  Commonwealth,  that  secured  to  laboring  women 
their  wages.  These  causes  co-operated  before  the  public 
opinion  of  women  themselves  demanded  the  changes. 
Laggard,  and  lacking  her  promptings,  the  cause  that 
we  advocate  came  up  behind  the  selfish  elements  of 
society.  But  if,  instead  of  this,  the  working  women  or 
heiresses  had  dictated  their  wants,  the  changes  could 
have  been  made ;  and  so  they  can  to-day. 

I  do  not  ignore  the  power  of  woman  ;  it  is  too  great. 
I  want  it  lessened.  I  am  not  going  to  give  the  sex  any 
more  influence;  I  am  going  to  diminish  it.  Her  in- 
fluence is  hidden  and  all  but  omnipotent.  Uneducated 
and  irresponsible,  it  is  terrible.  I  want  it  dragged  to 
the  light  of  day ;  I  want  it  measured  and  labelled ;  I 
want  it  counted  and  criticised  ;  I  want  it  educated 
and  put  on  record ;  I  want  to  be  able  to  find  it  and 
indict  it,  which  I  cannot  do  to-day.  In  order  to  do  that, 
let  us  trace  home  the  evil  to  its  very  source.  Let 
woman  know  that  nobody  stops  her  but  herself.  She 
ties  her  own  limbs;  she  corrupts  her  own  sisters;  she 
demoralizes  civilization,  —  and  then  folds  her  arms,  and 
calls  it  "  religion"  [applause],  or  steps  back,  and  chris- 
tens it  "  taste."  Do  you  suppose  that  the  tenants  of  a 
thousand  pulpits  could  avail  to  shut  woman  out  from 
making  her  own  opportunity,  if  the  women  of  the  Empire 
State  determined  that  it  should  be.  Find  me  the  motive, 
and  I  will  guarantee  the  ministers  to  make  it  commen- 
surate with  the  Scriptures.  Find  me  the  popular  habit, 
and  I  will  find  you  the  clergy  to  give  it  anchorage  in  the 
New  Testament. 


THE  EIGHT-HOUR  MOVEMENT. 


Address  in  Faneuil  Hall,  November  2,  1865. 

IT  is  twenty-nine  years  this  month  since  I  first  stood 
on  the  platform  of  Faneuil  Hall  to  address  an  audi- 
ence of  the  citizens  of  Boston.  I  felt  then  that  I  was 
speaking  for  the  cause  of  the  laboring  men,  and  if  to- 
night I  should  make  the  last  speech  of  my  life,  I  would 
be  glad  that  it  should  be  in  the  same  strain,  —  for  laboring 
men  and  their  rights. 

*The  labor  of  these  twenty-nine  years  has  been  in  be- 
half of  a  race  bought  and  sold.  The  South  did  not  rest 
their  system  wholly  on  this  claim  to  own  their  laborers ; 
but  according  to  Chancellor  Harper,  Alexander  H.  Ste- 
vens, Governor  Pickens,  and  John  C.  Calhoun,  asserted 
that  the  laborer  must  necessarily  be  owned  by  capitalists 
or  individuals.  That  struggle  for  the  ownership  of  labor 
is  now  somewhat  near  its  end ;  and  we  fitly  commence  a 
struggle  to  define  and  to  arrange  the  true  relations  of 
capital  and  labor.  To-day  one  of  your  sons  is  born. 
He  lies  in  his  cradle  as  the  child  of  a  man  without 
means,  with  a  little  education,  and  with  less  leisure. 
The  favored  child  of  the  capitalist  is  borne  up  by  every 
circumstance,  as  on  the  eagle's  wings.  The  problem  of 
to-day  is  how  to  make  the  chances  of  the  two  as  equal  as 
possible  ;  and  before  this  movement  stops,  every  child 
born  in  America  must  have  an  equal  chance  in  life. 


140  THE    EIGHT-HOUR   MOVEMENT. 

In  this  final  arrangement,  every  man  will  combine  in 
his  own  person  the  laborer  and  the  capitalist.  There 
cannot  be  any  conflict  between  labor  and  capital.  What 
makes  our  lives  easier  than  those  of  our  ancestors  ? 
They  are  so  because  six  generations  of  workmen  have 
made  Massachusetts  a  great  treasure-house  of  capital. 
When  our  fathers  landed  here,  Massachusetts  was  a 
wilderness.  Forests  have  been  removed,  roads  built, 
cities  raised  by  capital  or  aggregated  labor.  Capital 
and  labor  are  only  the  two  arms  of  a  pair  of  scissors,  — 
useless  when  separate,  and  only  when  fastened  together 
cutting  everything  before  them. 

What,  then,  do  we  come  here  for  ?  To  find  out  the 
true  relation  between  capital  and  labor,  to  make  the 
laborer  more  comfortable,  and  a  more  worthy  citizen. 
Where  the  government  rests  on  the  people,  its  adminis- 
trators are  bound  to  give  time  to  the  laborers  to  under- 
stand the  theory  of  government.  When  shut  up  an 
excessive  number  of  hours  in  labor,  the  workman  comes 
out  but  the  fag-end  of  a  man,  without  brain  to  think  of 
such  subjects.  Now,  therefore,  it  is  a  fair  division  to 
give  him  eight  hours  for  labor,  eight  hours  for  sleep,  and 
eight  hours  for  his  own,  —  his  own  to  use  as  he  pleases. 
[Applause.]  I  shall  not  be  the  first  to  say,  "  You  shall 
not  have  it  unless  you  come  under  bonds  to  use  it  well." 
It  is  none  of  my  business  to  say  what  he  shall  do  with  what 
is  his  own.  I  shall  not  say  to  the  millionnaire,  "  We  will 
defend  you  in  the  possession  of  your  stocks  and  bonds, 
if  you  will  use  them  well."  I  may  argue  with  him,  and 
shall,  to  use  his  wealth  properly  ;  but  my  first  object 
shall  be  to  give  it  to  him,  because  it  belongs  to  him.  It 
has  been  argued  that  the  negro  would  not  work  if  his 
freedom  was  given  to  him.  I  have  answered,  his  free- 
dom belongs  to  him,  and  he  is  responsible  for  its  use. 

The  present  effort  is  to  give  the  laborer  more  leisure, 


THE   EIGHT-HOUR   MOVEMENT.  141 

in  order  to  make  him  more  intelligent.  Never,  in  history, 
has  more  leisure  been  secured  to  the  working-classes, 
but  greater  intelligence  has  resulted  therefrom.  Thirty 
millions  of  Frenchmen  to-day  hold  a  voice  in  the  gov- 
ernment, because  the  cry  against  lessening  their  labors 
was  not  heeded.  The  same  cry  has  been  raised  here ; 
it  has  been  said  that  the  workman  will  not  work  unless 
you  starve  him,  that  starvation  is  the  only  stimulus 
which  the  masses  will  obey.  I  don't  believe  it,  and  I 
want  to  lift  them  to  the  possibility  of  showing  that  it  is 
not  true. 

Now,  how  shall  this  thing  be  done  ?  I  will  tell  you,  I 
have  had  a  little  experience  in  this  matter.  [Laughter.] 
I  have  never  held,  and  never  expect  to  hold,  a  political 
office  ;  but  this  I  know,  that  the  man  who  only  looks 
at  the  game  can  sometimes  criticise  it  better  than  the 
players.  This  country  is  one  of  ideas.  You  can  never 
gain  your  point  by  threats  ;  it  would  be  disgraceful  to 
gain  it  thus.  Why  have  you  not  carried  your  ends  be- 
fore ?  Because  in  ignorance  and  division  you  have  let 
the  other  side  have  their  own  way.  We  are  ruled  by 
brains.  You  might  as  well  try  to  roll  back  Niagara,  as 
to  try  to  rule  New  England  against  her  ideas.  You  have 
got  to  face  them,  and  to  change  them.  You  need  not 
despair  if  truth  is  on  your  side.  You  must  have  the 
truth,  and  must  work  for  it.  There  are  three  sorts  of 
men,  —  those  who  have  the  truth,  but  lock  it  up  ;  those 
who  have  it  not,  but  work  like  the  devil  against  it ;  and 
those  who  have  it,  and  force  it  on  the  willing  conscience 
of  the  nation.  You  want  books  and  journals.  I  am 
glad  you  have  one  Voice  ;  but  one  can't  cover  the  State 
or  the  North.  You  want  something  to  subjugate  all 
journals,  and  bring  cultivated  minds  and  foremost  men 
to  your  service.  Opinions  differ  not  from  scoundrelism 
or  want  of  heart.  You  want  to  make  the  intellect  of  the 


142  THE   EIGHT-HOUR   MOVEMENT. 

country  discuss  the  question,  to  make  every  man  speak 
of  it.  How  did  we  Antislavery  men  do  this  ?  [A  voice, 
"  Kept  at  it ! "]  Yes,  kept  at  it.  You  know  the  pa- 
tient Job  said,  "  Oh,  that  mine  adversary  had  written  a 
book  !  "  Well,  he  was  a  wise  man.  [Laughter.]  When 
I  made  a  speech  here,  the  Daily  Advertiser  abused  me  ; 
but  it  could  not  abuse  justice  so  much  but  that  men 
could  see  the  delusion.  I  defy  a  man  to  make  an  argu- 
ment against  the  laws  of  God  that  will  hold  water.  Any 
man  trying  to  dodge  justice  will  answer  himself. 

How  will  you  make  the  newspapers  and  the  public 
men  discuss  the  Labor  Question  ?  I  will  tell  you.  Go 
into  the  political  field,  and  by  the  voice  of  forty  thousand 
workmen  say,  "  We  mean  that  eight  hours  shall  be  a 
day's  work,  and  no  man  shall  go  into  office  who  opposes 
it."  What  will  be  the  result  ?  It  will  be  the  same  as  in 
1846,  when  the  Abolitionists  said  they  were  going  to 
trample  on  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties.  The 
journals  then  took  up  the  question ;  the  intellect  and 
education  of  the  country  took  hold  of  it,  and  settled  it 
by  balking  the  South  so  that  they  said,  "Make  or  ruin, 
we  will  go  outside."  How  will  you  make  your  enemies 
wield  the  pen  ?  Do  it  by  announcing  your  political 
creed.  Break  into  the  debating  society  at  the  state- 
house,  and  make  them  discuss  the  Labor  Question.  I 
don't  want  the  subject  made  political  in  a  bad  sense 
of  the  word,  but  in  a  higher  sense.  When  men  have 
wrongs  to  complain  of,  they  should  go  to  the  ballot-box 
and  right  them.  1  may  be  asked  if  1  would  give  univer- 
sal suffrage  to  ignorant  men,  and  thus  give  them  power 
over  the  property  of  the  milhonnaire.  I  answer,  Yes  ;  all 
the  more  for  that,  because  then  the  rnillionnaire  would  be 
willing  to  give  a  part  of  his  wealth  to  aid  in  making 
voters  intelligent.  Universal  suffrage  is  taking  a  bond  of 
the  rich  to  educate  the  poor.  You  will  never  reach  the 


THE   EIGHT-HOUR   MOVEMENT.  143 

influential  classes  by  meetings  like  these.  How  will 
you  do  it  ?  Go  to  your  next  candidate  for  mayor,  and 
ask  him  if  he  is  in  favor  of  the  eight-hour  system.  If 
he  says,  Yes,  let  it  be  known  that  he  is  to  have  your 
votes.  If  No,  let  him  know  that  he  will  not  have  them. 
You  will  not,  perhaps,  gain  the  victory  the  first  time. 
It  would  be  a  disgrace  if  you  did.  [A  voice,  "  Why  ?  "J 
Because  it  would  look  as  if  you  had  frightened  the  city 
of  Boston.  You  will  gain  your  point  by  argument.  The 
Journal,  the  Advertiser,  the  Transcript  will  discuss  it, 
and  the  State  will  be  lifted  by  the  four  corners.  You 
will  gain  in  twelve  months  what  we  gained  in  twelve 
years,  if  you  are  true  to  yourselves. 

Some  may  think  this  a  political  address.  I  belong- 
to  no  political  party,  and  if  I  live  to  the  age  of  Methu- 
selah, do  not  expect  a  vote.  I  want  Charles  Sumner  to 
stand  on  this  platform,  and  give  his  views  on  this  ques- 
tion ;  I  want  Samuel  Hooper  to  come  down  here  and 
look  his  constituents  in  the  face  ;  I  want  Henry  Wilson, 
with  his  tireless  activity,  to  give  his  labors  to  the  work- 
ing-men. Abbott  Lawrence,  in  1840,  when  asked  by  a 
committee  of  his  constituents  what  his  opinion  was  in 
regard  to  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  said  he 
did  n't  know  as  he  had  any  opinion  on  the  subject,  and 
if  he  had,  it  was  not  worth  while  to  express  it.  Twenty 
years  later  he  would  have  cut  off  his  hands  rather  than 
give  such  an  answer.  Two  years  hence,  if  you  are  true 
to  yourselves,  instead  of  having  an  Ishmaelite  like  me  to 
address  you,  you  can  take  your  pick  out  of  all  the  poli- 
ticians in  the  country  ;  instead  of  one  journal,  you  will 
have  all  the  journals  discussing  the  Labor  Question. 

You  must  imitate  the  tenacity  of  the  Abolitionists 
in  adhering  to  a  single  issue.  The  Temperance  party 
committed  the  folly  of  depending  upon  resolutions,  and 
voting  for  Whigs  and  Democrats ;  and  influential  men, 


144  THE   EIGHT-HOUR    MOVEMENT. 

seeing  that  they  did  not  value  their  own  principles,  left 
them  out  in  the  cold.  There  are  men  enough  here  to 
govern  this  city.  When  you  have  convinced  thinking 
men  that  it  is  right,  and  humane  men  that  it  is  just,  you 
will  gain  your  cause.  Men  always  lose  half  of  what  is 
gained  by  violence.  What  is  gained  by  argument,  is 
gained  forever.  Mass  meetings  like  these  amount  to 
nothing.  A  political  movement,  saying,  "  WTe  will  have 
our  rights,"  is  a  mass  meeting  in  perpetual  session. 
Filtered  through  the  ballot-box  comes  the  will  of  the 
people,  and  statesmen  bow  to  it.  Go  home,  and  say  that 
the  working-men  of  Massachusetts  are  a  unit,  and  that 
they  mean  to  stereotype  their  purpose  on  the  statute- 
book. 


THE   CHINESE. 


An  Editorial  in  the  "  National  (Antislavery)  Standard," 
July  30,  1870. 

WE  welcome  every  man  of  every  race  to  our  soil 
and  to  the  protection  of  our  laws.  We  welcome 
every  man  to  the  best  opportunities  of  improving  him- 
self and  making  money  that  our  social  and  political 
systems  afford.  Let  every  oppressed  man  come ;  let 
every  poor  man  come ;  let  every  man  who  wishes  to 
change  his  residence  come,  —  we  welcome  all;  frankly 
acknowledging  the  principle  that  every  human  being 
has  the  right  to  choose  his  residence  just  where  he 
pleases  on  the  planet.  Our  faith  in  our  political  institu- 
tions and  in  our  social  system  is  that  both  can  endure 
all  the  strain  which  such  immigration  will  produce. 
More  than  this,  we  believe  that  our  civilization  will  be 
perfected  only  by  gathering  into  itself  the  patient  toil, 
the  content  with  moderate  wages,  the  cunning  hand,  the 
inventive  brain,  the  taste  and  aspirations,  the  deep  re- 
ligious sentiment,  the  rollicking  humor  and  vivid  im- 
agination, the  profound  insight  and  far-reaching  sagacity 
which  mark  the  different  races  ;  each  contributing  one 
special  trait  to  the  great  whole. 

But  such  immigration  to  be  safe  and  helpful  must  be 
spontaneous.  It  must  be  the  result  of  individual  will 
obeying  the  laws  of  industry  and  the  tendencies  of  the 
age.  Immigration  of  labor  is  an  unmixed  good.  Impor- 
tation of  human  freight  is  an  unmitigated  evil. 

10 


146  THE    CHINESE. 

This  brings  us  to  the  question  of  importing  Chinese 
laborers.  The  Chinese  are  a  painstaking,  industrious, 
thrifty,  inventive,  self-respectful,  and  law-abiding  race. 
They  have  some  pretentious  to  democratic  institutions 
and  moral  culture,  —  are  a  little  too  much  machines; 
but  we  shall  soon  shake  that  servility  out  of  them. 
Their  coming  will  be  a  welcome  and  valuable  addition 
to  the  mosaic  of  our  nationality  ;  but,  in  order  to  that, 
they  must  come  spontaneously,  of  their  own  free-will 
and  motion,  as  the  Irish,  Germans,  and  English  have 
done.  If  the  capital  of  the  country  sets  to  work,  by 
system  and  wide  co-operation,  to  import  them  in  masses, 
to  disgorge  them  upon  us  with  unnatural  rapidity,  —  then 
their  coming  will  be  a  peril  to  our  political  system,  and 
a  disastrous  check  to  our  social  progress. 

We  lay  it  down  as  a  fundamental  principle,  —  never 
to  be  lost  sight  of,  —  that  every  immigrant  of  every 
j;ace  must  be  admitted  to  citizenship,  if  he  asks  for  it. 
The  right  to  be  naturalized  must  not  be  limited  by  race, 
^creed,  or  birthplace.  Secondly,  every  adult  here,  native 
or  naturalized,  must  vote.  In  spite  of  this,  give  us  time, 
'with  only  a  natural  amount  of  immigration,  and  we  can 
trust  the  education  and  numbers  of  our  native  voters  to 
safely  absorb  and  make  over  the  foreign  element.  Irish 
and  German  immigration  has  been  only  a  ripple  on  our 
ocean's  breadth ;  generally  speaking,  it  has  been  only  a 
healthy  stir.  But  it  is  easily  possible  for  associated 
capital  to  hurry  the  coming  of  the  Chinese  in  such 
masses  as  will  enable  these  money  lords  to  control  the 
ballot-box  by  their  bond-servants.  An  extended  North 
Adams  can  do  more  than  lessen  shoemakers'  wages ; 
one  thousand  such  Samsons,  the  associated  capital  of 
Massachusetts,  can  swamp  and  overwhelm  the  ballot-box 
of  that  State.  We  hold  it  to  be  clearly  within  the  prov- 
ince, and  as  clearly  the  duty  of  legislation,  to  avert  this 


THE    CHINESE.  147 

danger.  Capital  is  too  strong  now.  The  public  welfare 
demands  that  its  political  power  be  crippled.  Universal 
suffrage  is  admissible  only  on  condition  of  an  educated 
people.  We  cannot  undertake  to  educate  the  whole 
world  at  once.  In  detachments,  million  by  million,  we 
can  digest  the  whole  human  race. 

Then  as  to  the  influence  of  such  importation  on  the 
laboring  classes.  The  Chinaman  will  make  shoes  for 
seventy-five  cents  a  day.  The  average  wages  for  such 
work  in  Massachusetts  is  two  dollars.  What  will  be- 
come of  the  native  working-men  under  such  competi- 
tion ?  He  met  similar  competition  from  the  Irish  im- 
migrants and  the  German  ;  but  it  never  harmed  him. 
They  came  in  such  natural  and  moderate  numbers  as  to 
be  easily  absorbed,  without  producing  any  ill-effect  on 
wages.  These  continued  steadily  to  advance.  So  will 
it  be  in  the  case  of  the  Chinese,  if  he  be  left  to  come 
naturally  by  his  individual  motion  ;  imported  in  over- 
whelming masses  by  the  concerted  action  of  capital,  he 
will  crush  the  labor  of  America  down  to  a  pauper  level, 
for  many  years  to  come. 

Putting  aside  all  theories,  every  lover  of  progress 
must  see,  with  profound  regret,  the  introduction  here  of 
any  element  which  will  lessen  wages.  The  mainspring 
of  our  progress  is  high  wages,  —  wages  at  such  a  level 
that  the  working-man  can  spare  his  wife  to  preside  over 
a  home,  can  command  leisure,  go  to  lectures,  take  a 
newspaper,  and  lift  himself  from  the  deadening  routine 
of  mere  toil.  That  dollar  left  after  all  the  bills  are 
paid  on  Saturday  night,  means  education,  independence, 
self-respect,  manhood  ;  it  increases  the  value  of  every 
acre  near  by,  fills  the  town  with  dwellings,  opens  public 
libraries  and  crowds  them ;  dots  the  continent  with 
cities,  and  cobwebs  it  with  railways.  That  one  remain- 
ing dollar  insures  progress,  and  guarantees  Astor's  mil- 


148  THE   CHINESE. 

lions  to  their  owner  better  than  a  score  of  statutes.  It 
is  worth  more  than  a  thousand  colleges,  and  makes 
armies  and  police  superfluous. 

The  importation  of  Chinese  labor  seeks  to  take  that 
dollar  from  our  working-man.  The  true  statesman 
must  regard  such  a  policy  as  madness.  The  philanthro- 
pist must  consider  it  cruel  and  mad  too.  Even  so  much 
of  such  a  result  as  will  inevitably  be  wrought  by  the 
natural  immigration  of  the  Chinese  is  to  be  deplored; 
every  aggravation  of  it  is  to  be  resisted  for  the  sake  of 
republicanism  and  civilization.  If  we  cannot  find  in  the 
armory  of  the  law  some  effectual  weapon  to  prevent  it, 
our  political  and  social  future,  for  fifty  years,  is  dark  in- 
deed, and  such  a  fate  as  swallowed  up  Roman  civiliza- 
tion is  by  no  means  impossible. 

Every  one  cries  out  for  cheap  labor  to  develop  the 
country.  Even  if  material  or  pecuniary  gain  were  the 
only  requisite  for  social  or  natural  progress,  —  which,  of 
course  it  is  far  from  being,  —  still  it  is  true  that  jm- 

.  settled  lands  may  be  opened  up  too  fast  for  profit, 
much  more  for  real  progress.  Indeed,  this  random  and 
thoughtless  cry  for  cheap  labor  is  one  of  the  great  mis- 
takes of  heartless  and  superficial  economists ;  seldom 

1  has  there  been  a  graver  mistake.  We  assert  unhesitat- 
ingly that  CHEAP  PRODUCTIONS  ARE  AN  UNMIXED  GOOD; 
CHEAP  LABOR  IS  AN  UNMITIGATED  EVIL.  Human  progress 

shows  itself  in  a  fall  of  prices  and  a  rise  of  wages.  Al- 
though labor  makes  one  half  the  cost  of  production,  still 
it  is  true  that  the  world  gains  just  so  fast  as  prices  fall 
and  wages  rise.  To  insure  progress,  the  cost  of  every- 
thing but  human  muscle  and  brains  must  fall.  The  re- 
muneration of  these  two  elements  in  production  must 
rise.  In  William  Penn's  time  it  took  one  hundred  and 
thirty-seven  days'  toil  to  buy  a  ton  of  flour ;  in  1790, 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  days'  labor  would  buy  it; 


THE    CHINESE.  149 

in  1835,  eighty  days'  work  sufficed ;  now,  in  1870, 
probably  forty  or  fifty  days'  wages  would  buy  a  ton  of 
flour.  That  fact  measures  and  explains  the  social,  in- 
dustrial, moral,  and  political  progress  of  Pennsylvania. 

In  view  of  such  a  rule  we  claim  the  right  of  govern- 
ment to  check  any  forced  and  unnatural  importation  of 
labor ;  against  such  a  claim  the  advocate  of  a  protec- 
tive tariff  cannot  consistently  open  his  mouth.  If  gov- 
ernment may  and  should  protect  a  nation  against  pauper 
labor  in  other  lands,  this  surely  —  this  immigration  of 
pauper  labor  —  is  the  most  threatening  danger.  If  you 
would  be  consistent,  Mr.  Protectionist,  join  with  us  in 
devising  effectual  methods  to  avert  it.  If  the  Free 
Trader  assails  us  with  his  objection,  "  Has  not  the  lab- 
orer a  right  to  buy  his  coat  or  flour  in  the  cheapest 
market  ? "  We  answer,  "  Yes,  under  certain  restric- 
tions." To  purchase  the  products  of  the  earth,  manu- 
factured or  otherwise,  wherever  you  can  get  them  cheap- 
est, is  good ;  good  for  the  seller  and  good  for  the 
purchaser.  But  this  is  only  true  provided  there  is  no 
artificial  combination,  no  plot  of  powerful  men  or 
classes  to  flood  the  market  of  one  land  with  the  surplus 
of  another.  Every  competition  that  comes  in  natural 
currents,  from  individual  enterprise,  is  a  healthy  ten-  • 
dency  to  average.  Secondly,  this  restriction  is  to  be 
still  more  stringently  enforced  in  the  purchase  of  human 
labor ;  since  the  artificial  and  forced  antagonism  of  that 
deranges  society,  undermines  government,  obstructs 
progress,  crushes  individual  effort,  and  drags  the  high- 
est type  of  human  attainments  down  to  the  murky  level 
of  the  lowest  and  idlest  barbarism.  Against  anything 
which  threatens  such  results  government  has  the  right 
to  defend  society  by  appropriate  laws. 

The  rate  of  wages  is  said  to  depend  upon  supply  and 
demand.     The  rule  is  sound ;  but  so  equivocal  that  it  is 


150  THE    CHINESE. 

worth  little.     Rate  of  wages  really  depends  on  what  the 
workman    thinks  will  buy  him  the  necessities  of  life. 

There  are  men  in  England  whose  highest  idea  of  life 
is  to  work  sixteen  hours  a  day,  go  naked,  eat  meat  once  a 
year,  herd  —  both  sexes  and  all  ages — with  cattle  under 
one  roof,  and  need  only  two  hundred  words  to  express 
all  their  ideas.  Such  men  will  work  for  enough  to  sup- 
ply these  natural  wants.  When  wages  fall  below  that, 
they  steal,  starve,  or  wake  to  an  intellectual  effort  to 
better  themselves  ;  their  idea  of  necessaries  does  much 
to  fix  the  rate  of  wages.  A  Yankee  farmer's  boy  must 
have  good  clothes,  schooling,  ample  food,  and  something 
over,  —  these  are  his  necessities.  When  wages  will  not 
buy  them  he  ceases  to  belong  to  the  ranks  of  "  supply," 
and  carves  out  a  new  career.  There  are  good  food  and 
high  wages  in  the  kitchens  of  New  York ;  more  than 
many  trades  afford.  A  great  "  demand "  there  for 
American  girls  ;  no  "  supply  "  nevertheless.  We  know 
it  is  only  a  sentiment  that  prevents ;  but  that  senti- 
ment is  as  rigid  as  iron  and  inexorable  as  fate. 

"  Supply  and  demand,"  therefore,  are  to  be  understood, 
with  a  qualification.  The  u  ideas  "  of  the  "  supply  "  are 
a  most  important  element  in  the  calculation.  What  are 
the  ideas  of  the  "  supply  "  ?  These  regulate  his  wages. 
The  Chinaman  works  cheap  because  he  is  a  barbarian, 
and  seeks  gratification  of  only  the  lowest,  the  most  in- 
evitable wants.  The  American  demands  more  because 
the  ages,  —  because  Homer  and  Plato,  Egypt  and  Rome, 
Luther  and  Shakspeare,  Cromwell  and  Washington,  the 
printing-press  and  the  telegraph,  the  ballot-box  and  the 
Bible,  —  have  made  him  ten  times  as  much  a  MAN.  Bring 
the  Chinese  to  us  slowly,  naturally,  and  we  shall  soon 
lift  him  to  the  level  of  the  same  artificial  and  civil- 
ized wants  that  we  feel.  Then  capitalist  and  laborer 
will  both  be  equally  helped.  Fill  our  industrial  chan- 


THE   CHINESE.  151 

nels  with  imported  millions,  and  you  choke  them  ruin- 
ously. They  who  seek  to  flood  us,  artificially,  with  bar- 
barous labor,  are  dragging  down  the  American  home  to 
the  level  of  the  houseless  street-herds  of  China.  If  the 
working-men  have  not  combined  to  prevent  this,  it  is 
time  they  should.  When  rich  men  conspire,  poor  men 
should  combine. 

In  such  combinations,  —  inevitable  and  indispensable 
in  the  circumstances,  —  the  best  minds  and  hearts  of  the 
land  are  with  them.  Only  let  them  be  sure  not  to  copy 
the  tyranny  which  makes  their  opponents  weak.  Their 
only  strength  is  an  admitted  principle,  —  all  men  equal, 
equally  free  to  carve  each  his  own  career,  and  entitled 
to  all  the  aid  his  fellows  can  give.  Stand  on  that 
unflinchingly ;  rebuke  every  threat ;  avoid  all  violence ; 
appeal  only  to  discussion  and  the  ballot.  You  out- 
number the  capitalists  at  any  rate.  The  ballot  was 
given  for  just  such  crises  as  these ;  use  it,  and  you 
oblige  the  press  to  discuss  your  claims.  Use  it  remorse- 
lessly, and  legislatures  will  soon  find  a  remedy.  Com- 
pel attention  by  fidelity  to  each  other.  Inscribe  on  your 
ballot-boxes,  "  HEBE  WE  NEVER  FORGIVE." 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  THE  LABOR 
MOVEMENT. 


At  the  Labor-Reform  Convention,  which  assembled  at  Worcester, 
September  4,  1871,  Mr.  Phillips  presided,  and  presented  the  follow- 
ing resolutions,  which  were  unanimously  adopted.  They  are,  indeed, 
a  tl  full  body  of  faith ;  "  and  they  show  just  where  Mr.  Phillips  stood 
for  the  last  thirteen  years  of  his  life. 

PLATFORM. 

We  affirm,  as  a  fundamental  principle,  that  labor,  the  creator  of 
wealth,  is  entitled  to  all  it  creates. 

Affirming  this,  we  avow  ourselves  willing  to  accept  the  final  re- 
sults of  the  operation  of  a  principle  so  radical,  —  such  as  the  over- 
throw of  the  whole  profit-making  system,  the  extinction  of  all 
monopolies,  the  abolition  of  privileged  classes,  universal  education 
and  fraternity,  perfect  freedom  of  exchange,  and,  best  and  grandest 
.of  all,  the  final  obliteration  of  that  foul  stigma  upon  our  so-called 
Christian  civilization,  —  the  poverty  of  the  masses.  Holding  prin- 
ciples as  radical  as  these,  and  having  before  our  minds  an  ideal  con- 
dition so  noble,  we  are  still  aware  that  our  goal  cannot  be  reached 
at  a  single  leap.  We  take  into  account  the  ignorance,  selfishness, 
prejudice,  corruption,  and  demoralization  of  the  leaders  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  to  a  large  extent,  of  the  people  themselves ;  but  still,  we 
demand  that  some  steps  be  taken  in  this  direction  :  therefore,  — 

Resolved,  —  That  we  declare  war  with  the  wages  system,  which 
demoralizes  alike  the  hirer  and  the  hired,  cheats  both,  and  enslaves 
the  working-man ;  war  with  the  present  system  of  finance,  which 
robs  labor,  and  gorges  capital,  makes  the  rich  richer,  and  the  poor 
poorer,  and  turns  a  republic  into  an  aristocracy  of  capital ;  war  with 
these  lavish  grants  of  the  public  lands  to  speculating  companies,  and 
whenever  in  power,  we  pledge  ourselves  to  use  every  just  and  legal 


THE   FOUNDATION    OF   THE   LABOR   MOVEMENT.         153 

means  to  resume  all  such  grants  heretofore  made ;  war  with  the  sys- 
tem of  enriching  capitalists  by  the  creation  and  increase  of  public 
interest-bearing  debts.  We  demand  that  every  facility,  and  all  en- 
couragement, shall  be  given  by  law  to  co-operation  in  all  branches 
of  industry  and  trade,  and  that  the  same  aid  be  given  to  co-operative 
efforts  that  has  heretofore  been  given  to  railroads  and  other  enter- 
prises. We  demand  a  ten-hour  day  for  factory-work,  as  a  first  step, 
and  that  eight  hours  be  the  working-day  of  all  persons  thus  em- 
ployed hereafter.  We  demand  that,  whenever  women  are  employed 
at  public  expense  to  do  the  same  kind  and  amount  of  work  as  men 
perform,  they  shall  receive  the  same  wages.  We  demand  that  all 
public  debts  be  paid  at  once  in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  con- 
tract, and  that  no  more  debts  be  created.  Viewing  the  contract 
importation  of  .coolies  as  only  another  form  of  the  slave-trade,  we 
demand  that  all  contracts  made  relative  thereto  be  void  in  this  coun- 
try ;  and  that  no  public  ship,  and  no  steamship  which  receives  public 
subsidy,  shall  aid  in  such  importation. 

In  presenting  this  platform,  he  enforced  its  far-reaching  principles 
in  a  speech  from  which  the  following  passages  are  taken  :  — 

I  regard  the  movement  with  which  this  convention  is  connected 
as  the  grandest  and  most  comprehensive  movement  of  the  age. 
And  I  choose  my  epithets  deliberately ;  for  I  can  hardly  name  the 
idea  in  which  humanity  is  interested,  which  I  do  not  consider  locked 
up  in  the  success  of  this  movement  of  the  people  to  take  possession 
of  their  own. 

All  over  the  world,  in  every  civilized  land,  every  man  can  see, 
no  matter  how  thoughtless,  that  the  great  movement  of  the  masses, 
in  some  shape  or  other,  has  begun.  Humanity  goes  by  logical  steps, 
and  centuries  ago  the  masses  claimed  emancipation  from  actual 
chains.  It  was  citizenship,  nothing  else.  When  that  was  gained, 
they  claimed  the  ballot ;  and  when  our  fathers  won  that,  then  the 
road  was  opened,  the  field  was  clear  for  this  last  movement,  toward 
which  the  age  cannot  be  said  to  grope,  as  we  used  to  phrase  it,  but 
toward  which  the  age  lifts  itself  all  over  the  world. 

If  there  is  any  one  feature  which  we  can  distinguish  in  all 
Christendom,  under  different  names, — trades- unions,  co-operation, 
Crispins,  and  Internationals, — under  all  flags,  there  is  one  great 
movement.  It  is  for  the  people  peaceably  to  take  possession  of  their 
own.  No  more  riots  in  the  streets  ;  no  more  disorder  and  revolu- 


154         THE   FOUNDATION   OF   THE   LABOR   MOVEMENT. 

tiou  ;  no  more  arming  of  different  bands;  no  cannon  loaded  to  the 
lips.  To-day  the  people  have  chosen  a  wiser  method,  —  they  have 
got  the  ballot  in  their  right  hands,  and  they  say,  "  We  come  to  take 
possession  of  the  governments  of  the  earth."  In  the  interests  of 
peace,  I  welcome  this  movement,  —  the  peaceable  marshalling  of  all 
voters  toward  remodelling  the  industrial  and  political  civilization  of 
the  day.  I  have  not  a  word  to  uttei ,  —  far  be  it  from  me  !  —  against 
the  grandest  declaration  of  popular  indignation  which  Paris  wrote  on 
the  pages  of  history  in  fire  and  blood.  I  honor  Paris  as  the  vanguard 
of  the  Internationals  of  the  world.  When  kings  wake  at  night,  star- 
tled and  aghast,  they  do  not  dream  of  Germany  and  its  orderly  array  or 
forces.  Aristocracy  wakes  up  aghast  at  the  memory  of  France ,  and 
when  I  want  to  find  the  vanguard  of  the  people,  I  look  to  the  uneasy 
dreams  of  an  aristocracy,  and  find  what  they  dread  most.  And  to- 
day the  conspiracy  of  emperors  is  to  put  down  —  what  ?  Not  the 
Czar,  not  the  Emperor  William,  not  the  armies  of  United  Germany  ; 
but,  when  the  emperors  come  together  in  the  centre  of  Europe, 
what  plot  do  they  lay?  To  annihilate  the  Internationals,  and 
France  is  the  soul  of  the  Internationals.  I,  for  one,  honor  Paris  ; 
but  in  the  name  of  Heaven,  and  with  the  ballot  in  our  right  hands, 
we  shall  not  need  to  write  our  record  in  fire  and  blood ;  we  write  it 
in  the  orderly  majorities  at  the  ballot-box, 

If  any  man  asks  me,  therefore,  what  value  I  place  first  upon  this 
movement.  I  should  say  it  was  the  movement  of  humanity  to  pro- 
tect itself  ;  and  secondly,  it  is  the  insurance  of  peace ;  and  thirdly, 
it  is  a  guaranty  against  the  destruction  of  capital.  We  all  know 
that  there  is  no  war  between  labor  and  capital ;  that  they  are  part- 
ners, not  enemies,  and  their  true  interests  on  any  just  basis  are 
identical.  And  this  movement  of  ballot-bearing  millions  is  to  avoid 
the  unnecessary  waste  of  capital. 

Well,  gentlemen,  I  say  so  much  to  justify  myself  in  styling  this 
the  grandest  and  most  comprehensive  movement  of  the  age. 


You  do  not  kill  a  hundred  millions  of  corporate  capital,  you  do 
not  destroy  the  virus  of  incorporate  wealth  by  any  one  election. 
The  capitalists  of  Massachusetts  are  neither  fools  nor  cowards;  and 
you  will  have  to  whip  them  three  times,  and  bury  them  under  a 
monument  weightier  than  Bunker  Hill,  before  they  will  believe 
they  are  whipped.  Now,  gentlemen,  the  inference  from  that  state- 
ment is  this  :  The  first  duty  resting  on  this  convention,  which  rises 


THE   FOUNDATION   OF   THE   LABOR   MOVEMENT.         155 

above  all  candidates  and  all  platforms,  is,  that  it  should  keep  the 
Labor  party  religiously  together. 

The  following  address  was  delivered  in  Music  Hall,  Boston, 
October31,  1871. 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  We  are  sometimes  so  near 
an  object  that  we  cannot  see  it.  I  could  place 
you  so  near  the  City  Hall  to-night  that  you  would  not 
know  whether  you  were  looking  at  a  ton  of  granite  or  a 
wall  of  a  large  building.  So  it  is  with  a  fact.  The  men 
who  stand  the  nearest  to  it  are  often  the  last  to  recog- 
nize either  its  breadth  or  its  meaning.  Perhaps  the  last 
men  to  appreciate  a  fact  are  the  men  nearest  to  whose 
eyes  it  passes  ;  and  it  is  just  so  in  government.  We  are 
hardly  aware  of  the  changes  that  are  taking  place  about 
us  ;  our  children  will  understand  them  distinctly. 

There  is  a  large  class  among  our  German  fellow- 
citizens  who  advocate  the  abolition  of  the  Presidency. 
The  thoughtful  in  that  class  perceive,  what  the  ordinary 
passer-by  does  not  recognize,  that  we  are  daily  abolish- 
ing the  Presidency,  and  the  movement  of  the  country 
for  fifty  years  has  been  toward  the  abolition  of  the  Pres- 
idency. You  see  this  tendency  in  a  variety  of  circum- 
stances. When  we  were  first  a  nation,  the  greatest  men 
among  us  were  chosen  President,  and  named  for  Pres- 
ident ;  but  now  we  don't  think  of  putting  up  a  first-rate 
man. 

There  is  another  feature  we  don't  sec,  —  that  the 
government  is  fast  being  monopolized  by  the  House  of 
Representatives.  If  we  go  on  as  we  have  done  for  half 
a  century,  there  will  be  no  government  in  this  country 
except  the  House.  Whatever  defies  the  power  of  the 
great  House  will  go  down.  Whether  harmonious  and 
beneficent  results  will  follow  our  adoption  of  the  sys- 
tem, depends  upon  whether  the  great  mass  of  men  and 


156         THE   FOUNDATION   OF  THE  LABOR  MOVEMENT. 

women,  with  universal  suffrage  as  their  sheet-anchor, 
can  work  out  through  these  results  one  single  tool  like 
the  House. 

I  have  only  gone  into  this  statement  to  approach  a 
second  point ;  and  that  is,  we  stand  on  the  moment  when 
the  people  actually  put  their  hands  forth  for  power.  We 
stand  at  an  epoch  when  the  nature  of  the  government  is 
undergoing  a  fundamental  change.  I  have  been  speak- 
ing of  machines,  —  whether  we  should  operate  through 
a  Senate  and  President,  or  solely  through  a  House.  I 
have  been  speaking  of  the  spindles  and  wheels.  Below 
that  lies  the  water-power.  The  water-power  of  Great 
Britain  has  been  the  wealth  of  thirty  thousand  land- 
holders,—  thirty  thousand  land-holding  families,  perhaps 
seven  hundred  thousand  or  a  million  voters.  With  us, 
the  water-power  is  to  be  the  ballots  of  ten  millions  of 
adult  men  and  women,  scattered  through  all  classes, — 
rich  and  poor,  educated  arid  ignorant,  prompt  and  con- 
servative, radical  and  timid,  all  modes  and  kinds  and 
qualities  of  mind.  Well,  that  brings  me  to  the  form 
which  this  great  advance  of  the  people  takes.  It  is  the 
working  masses  that  are  really  about  to  put  their  hands 
to  the  work  of  governing. 

It  is  no  accident,  no  caprice  of  an  individual,  no  mere 
shout  of  the  political  arena,  that  heralds  to-day  the  great 
Labor  movement  of  the  United  States. 

But  in  the  mean  time,  over  the  horizon,  looming  at 
first  and  now  almost  touching  its  meridian,  comes  up 
another  power,  —  I  mean  the  power  of  wealth,  the  in- 
ordinate power  of  capital.  Our  fathers,  when  they  pre- 
vented entail,  when  they  provided  for  the  distribution 
of  estates,  thought  they  had  erected  a  bulwark  against 
the  money  power  that  had  killed  Great  Britain.  They 
forgot  that  money  could  combine ;  that  a  moneyed  cor- 
poration was  like  the  papacy,  —  a  succession  of  persons 


THE    FOUNDATION    OF   THE   LABOR    MOVEMENT.         157 

with  a  unity  of  purpose;  that  it  never  died;  that  it 
never  by  natural  proclivity  became  imbecile.  The  grand- 
son of  a  king  is  necessarily  one  third  an  idiot;  but  the 
third  generation  of  a  money  corporation  is  wiser  for 
the  experience  of  predecessors,  and  preserves  the  same 
unity  of  purpose. 

This  great  money  power  looms  over  the  horizon  at  the 
very  moment  when,  to  every  thoughtful  man,  the  power 
of  the  masses  concentrating  in  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives is  to  become  the  sole  omnipotence  of  the  State. 
Naturally  so  ominous  a  conjecture  provokes  resistance ; 
naturally  a  peril  so  immediate  prompts  the  wealthy 
class  of  the  community  to  combine  for  defence. 

The  land  of  England  has  ruled  it  for  six  hundred 
years.  The  corporations  of  America  mean  to  rule  it 
in  the  same  way,  and  unless  some  power  more  radical 
than  that  of  ordinary  politics  is  found,  will  rule  it  in- 
evitably. I  confess  that  the  only  fear  I  have  in  regard 
to  republican  institutions  is  whether,  in  our  day,  any 
adequate  remedy  will  be  found  for  this  incoming  flood 
of  the  power  of  incorporated  wealth.  No  statesman,  no 
public  man  yet,  has  dared  to  defy  it.  Every  man  that 
has  met  it  has  been  crushed  to  powder  ;  and  the  only 
hope  of  any  effectual  grapple  with  it  is  in  rousing  the 
actual  masses,  whose  interests  permanently  lie  in  an 
opposite  direction,  to  grapple  with  this  great  force ;  for 
you  know  very  well  that  our  great  cities  are  the  radiat- 
ing points  from  which  go  forth  the  great  journalism,  the 
culture,  the  education,  the  commercial  influences,  that 
make  and  shape  the  nation.  The  great  cities  are  the 
arsenals  of  great  wealth,  where  wealth  manages  every 
thing  its  own  way. 

Now,  gentlemen,  to  me  the  Labor  movement  means 
just  this :  It  is  the  last  noble  protest  of  the  American 
people  against  the  power  of  incorporated  wealth,  seeking 


158         THE    FOUNDATION    OP   THE    LABOR   MOVEMENT. 

to  do  over  again  what  the  Whig  aristocracy  of  Great 
Britain  has  successfully  done  for  two  hundred  years. 
Thirty  thousand  families  own  Great  Britain  to-day ;  and 
if  you  multiply  John  Bright  by  a  hundred,  and  double 
his  eloquence,  it  seems  impossible  that  he  should  save 
England  from  a  violent  convulsion  in  the  great  grapple 
between  such  a  power  and  the  people  who  have  deter- 
mined to  have  their  way. 

Men  blame  us,  the  representatives  of  the  working- 
men  of  the  nation,  that  we  come  into  politics.  The 
other  day  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  meet  that  distin- 
guished Frenchman,  Monsieur  Coquerel ;  and  he  asked 
me  what  was  the  motto  of  the  working-men  of  the 
United  States.  I  said  to  him,  "  Short  hours,  better 
education,  co-operation  in  the  end,  and  in  the  mean 
time  a  political  movement  that  will  concentrate  the 
thought  of  the  country  upon  this  thing." 

Now,  here  I  take  issue  with  the  best  critic  which 
the  Labor  movement  has  met :  I  refer  to  Rev.  Samuel 
Johnson  of  Salem,  one  of  the  thinkers  who  has  spread 
out  before  the  people  his  objections  to  the  Labor  move- 
ment of  this  country.  His  first  objection  is,  that  we 
will  hurry  into  politics.  Well,  now,  our  answer  to  him, 
and  to  the  score  of  other  scholars  who  have  been  criti- 
cising us,  is  this  :  Gentlemen,  we  see  the  benefit  of  going 
into  politics.  If  we  had  not  rushed  into  politics,  had 
not  taken  Massachusetts  by  the  four  corners  and  shaken 
her,  you  never  would  have  written  your  criticisms.  We 
rush  into  politics  because  politics  is  the  safety-valve. 
We  could  discuss  as  well  as  you,  if  you  would  only  give 
us  bread  and  houses,  fair  pay  and  leisure,  and  opportu- 
nities to  travel.  We  could  sit  and  discuss  the  question 
for  the  next  fifty  years.  It 's  a  very  easy  thing  to  dis- 
cuss, for  a  gentleman  in  his  study,  with  no  anxiety 
about  to-morrow.  Why,  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of 


THE    FOUNDATION    OP   THE    LABOR   MOVEMENT.         159 

the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  and  Louis  XVI.,  in  France, 
seated  in  gilded  saloons  and  on  Persian  carpets,  sur- 
rounded with  luxury,  with  the  products  of  India,  and  the 
curious  manufactures  of  ingenious  Lyons  and  Rheims, 
discussed  the  rights  of  man,  and  balanced  them  in 
dainty  phrases,  and  expressed  them  in  such  quaint  gen- 
eralizations that  Jefferson  borrowed  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  from  their  hands.  There  they  sat,  bal- 
ancing and  discussing  sweetly,  making  out  new  theories, 
and  daily  erecting  a  splendid  architecture  of  debate,  till 
the  angry  crowd  broke  open  the  doors,  and  ended  the 
discussion  in  blood.  They  waited  too  long,  discussed 
about  half  a  century  too  long.  You  see,  discussion  is 
very  good  when  a  man  has  bread  to  eat,  and  his  chil- 
dren all  portioned  off,  and  his  daughters  married,  and 
his  house  furnished  and  paid  for,  and  his  will  made ; 
but  discussion  is  very  bad  when  — 

"  Ye  bear  the  children  weeping,  O  my  brothers ! 
Ere  the  sorrow  comes  with  years  ;  " 

discussion  is  bad  when  a  class  bends  under  actual  op- 
pression. We  want  immediate  action. 

We  would  fain  save  this  issue  from  an  outbreak  of 
actual  violence.  Therefore  we  go  into  politics. 

Well,  then,  our  critic  goes  on  to  say,  "  What  do  you 
call  yourselves  Labor  party  for  ?  All  men  labor.  Rufus 
Choate  labors.  Daniel  Webster  labors.  Why  do  you 
confine  your  party  to  the  men  that  work  ? "  Well,  now, 
we  confine  it  because  thus  there  is  no  mistake.  £3ow, 
ijuppose  you  should  take  up  a  book  presenting  the  con- 
dition of  the  laboring  classes  of  Great  Britain.  Mr. 
Gladstone  works  harder  than  any  other  man  there  ; 
Lord  Brougham  did  more  work  than  any  other  man  there  ; 
Lord  Palmerston,  up  to  his  eightieth  year,  worked  hard 
as  any  man  there.  But  if  you  were  to  take  up  a  book 


160    THE  FOUNDATION  OP  THE  LABOR  MOVEMENT. 

on  the  working-men  of  Great  Britain,  do  you  think  you 
would  find  the  condition  of  Lord  Brougham  there  ?  If 
you  took  up  a  book  on  the  British  laboring  class,  or 
how  much  they  eat,  what  kind  of  houses  they  live  in, 
etc.,  do  you  think  you  would  find  Gladstone's  income, 
and  the  number  of  rooms  he  had  in  his  house, 
and  how  many  children  he  had  had  the  last  fifty 
years  ?  So  if  an  Englishman  came  here,  and  said, 
"  I  want  to  know  something  about  your  working-men. 
Please  let  me  hear  it  from  some  of  themselves.  Whom 
shall  I  go  to  ?  "  Would  you  send  him  to  Daniel  Webster 
or  Rufus  Choate  ?  But  Daniel  Webster  did  as  much 
work  as  any  man  of  his  day.  Would  you  have  him 
sent  to  Rufus  Choate  ?  But  Rufus  Choate  was  a  hard- 
working m£n.  John  Marshall  and  Lemuel  Shaw  did  as 
much  work  as  any  men  in  Massachusetts  or  Virginia ; 
but  if  George  Combe  had  come  to  this  country,  and 
said,  "  I  want  to  see  a  specimen  of  the  laboring  class 
of  the  United  States,"  I  doubt  whether  any  man  would 
have  sent  him  to  Lemuel  Shaw.  I  ask  the  critics  of 
the  Labor  movement,  whether  any  man  ever  misunder- 
stood this  ?  Every  man  who  reads  of  the  Labor  Ques- 
tion knows  that  it  means  the  movement  of  the  men 
that  earn  their  living  with  their  hands  ;  that  are  em- 
ployed, and  paid  in  wages ;  are  gathered  under  roofs  of 
factories ;  sent  out  on  farms ;  sent  out  on  ships ;  gath- 
ered on  the  walls.  In  popular  acceptation,  the  working 
class  means  the  men  that  work  with  their  hands,  for 
wages,  so  many  hours  a  day,  employed  by  great  capital- 
ists ;  that  work  for  everybody  else. 

Why  do  we  move  for  this  class  ?  "  Why,"  says  Mr. 
Johnson,  "  don't  you  move  for  all  working-men  ? " 
Because,  while  Daniel  Webster  gets  forty  thousand 
dollars  for  arguing  the  Mexican  claims,  there  is  no  need 
of  anybody's  moving  for  him.  While  Rufus  Choate  gets 


THE   FOUNDATION    OF  THE   LABOR   MOVEMENT.         161 

five  thousand  dollars  for  making  one  argument  to  a  jury, 
there  is  no  need  of  moving  for  him,  or  for  the  men  that 
work  with  their  brains,  —  that  do  highly  disciplined  and 
skilled  labor,  invent,  and  write  books.  The  reason  why 
the  Labor  movement  confines  itself  to  a  single  class  is 
because  that  class  of  work  does  not  get  paid,  does  not  get 
protection.  Mental  labor  is  adequately  paid,  and  more 
than  adequately  protected.  It  can  shift  its  channels ; 
it  can  vary  according  to  the  supply  and  demand.  If  a 
man  fails  as  a  minister,  why,  he  becomes  a  railway- 
conductor.  If  that  does  n't  suit  him,  he  turns  out,  and 
becomes  the  agent  of  an  insurance  office.  If  that  does  n't 
suit,  he  goes  West,  and  becomes  governor  of  a  Terri- 
tory. And  if  he  finds  himself  incapable  of  either  of 
these  positions,  he  comes  home,  and  gets  to  be  a  city 
editor.  He  varies  his  occupation  as  he  pleases,  and 
does  n't  need  protection.  But  the  great  mass,  chained 
to  a  trade,  doomed  to  be  ground  up  in  the  mill  of  sup- 
ply and  demand,  that  work  so  many  hours  a  day,  and 
must  run  in  the  great  ruts  of  business,  —  they  are  the 
men  whose  inadequate  protection,  whose  unfair  share  of 
the  general  product  claims  a  movement  in  their  behalf. 

Well,  the  third  charge  brought  by  Mr.  Johnson 
against  us  is,  that  we  are  cruel,  —  we  combine  ;  we 
prevent  this  man  from  laboring  there,  and  we  won't  let 
that  man  learn  our  trade  ;  we  form  trades-unions.  To 
be  sure  we  do.  We  say  to  the  Chinese,  "  Stay  at  home. 
Don't  come  here  by  importation  ;  come  by  immigration." 
We  say  to  the  crowding  millions  who  try  to  swamp  our 
trade,  "  Stand  aloof ;  we  won't  teach  you."  We  say  to 
the  mills  of  Lowell,  who  have  turned  us  out  of  doors, 
"We'll  starve  you  into  submission."  Well,  "it's  a 
narrow  contest.  It 's  an  unjust,  it 's  a  cruel,  it 's  an 
avaricious  method."  So  it  is.  Where  did  we  learn  it  ? 
Learned  it  of  capital,  learned  it  of  our  enemies. 

11 


162         THE    FOUNDATION    OF   THE   LABOR    MOVEMENT. 

I  know  labor  is  narrow ;  I  know  she  is  aggressive  ;  I 
know  she  arms  herself  with  the  best  weapon  that  a  cor- 
rupt civilization  furnishes,  —  all  true.  Where  did  we 
get  these  ideas  ?  Borrowed  them  from  capital,  every 
one  of  them  ;  and  when  you  advance  to  us  on  the  level 
of  peace,  unarmed,  we  '11  meet  you  on  the  same.  While 
you  combine  and  plot  and  defend,  so  will  we. 

But  Mr.  Johnson  says,  "  Come  into  the  world  with 
the  white  banner  of  peace."  Ay,  we  will,  when  you 
disarm.  How  foolish  it  would  have  been  for  Grant  to 
send  home  his  Sharp's  rifles  to  Springfield,  and  garner 
all  his  cannon  in  New  York,  and  put  all  his  monitors  in 
the  harbor  of  Norfolk,  and  go  down  to  Virginia  with 
eighty  thousand  unarmed  men,  to  look  her  in  the  face  ! 
Labor  comes  up,  and  says,  "  They  have  shotted  their 
cannon  to  the  lips  ;  they  have  rough-ground  their  swords 
as  in  battle  ;  they  have  adopted  every  new  method  ; 
they  have  invented  every  dangerous  machine,  —  and  it  is 
all  planted  like  a  great  park  of  artillery  against  us. 
They  have  incorporated  wealth  ;  they  have  hidden  be- 
hind banks;  they  have  concealed  themselves  in  cur- 
rency ;  they  have  sheltered  themselves  in  taxation  ; 
they  have  passed  rules  to  govern  us,  —  and  we  will  im- 
prove upon  the  lesson  they  have  taught  us.  When  they 
disarm,  we  will  —  not  before." 

Well,  then,  the  fourth  charge  is  found  in  the  Daily 
Advertiser.  WTe  had  a  meeting  at  Framingham,  and 
passed  a  set  of  resolutions  ;  we  adopted  a  platform ; 
and  the  next  day  the  Daily  Advertiser  granted  us  the 
condescension  of  an  article,  criticising  our  action,  espe- 
cially mine  ;  and  they  described  what  we  had  adopted. 
They  painted  its  horrible  tendency.  They  said,  "  If  you 
adopt  that  principle,  it  will  lead  you  to  that  (a,nd  so  on 
to  that)  till  the  final  result  will  be  -  "I  held  my  breath. 
I  said  to  mvself,  "  What  will  it  probably  be  ?  Perhaps 


THE    FOUNDATION    OF   THE   LABOR   MOVEMENT.         163 

(lie  stereotyped  ghost  of  the  French  Revolution ;  that 's 
what 's  coming."  "  The  final  result  will  be  —  "  Horri- 
ble !  I  thought  probably  they  would  paint  a  millionnaire 
hanging  on  every  lamp-post.  "  The  final  result  — " 
Perhaps  it  will  be  Mormonism ;  society  dissolved  into 
its  original  elements.  Horrible !  I  began  to  feel  a 
faint  sensation  ;  but  I  concluded  to  read  on :  "  The 
final  result  will  be  an  equalization  of  property."  Hor- 
rible, horrible !  Actually,  men  will  be  almost  equal ! 
An  equalization  of  property  !  Any  man  that  does  that 
ought  to  be  hanged.  Well,  we  do  mean  it ;  we  do  mean 
just  that.  That 's  the  meaning  of  the  Labor  movement, 
—  an  equalization  of  property.  The  Advertiser  has 
found  us  out,  actually  discovered  our  plot.  He 's  let  the 
cat  out  of  the  bag.  We  did  n't  mean  to  have  told  you, 
but  it  is  so.  What  we  need  is  an  equalization  of  prop- 
erty, —  nothing  else.  My  ideal  of  a  civilization  is  a  very 
high  one  ;  but  the  approach  to  it  is  a  New  England  town 
of  some  two  thousand  inhabitants,  with  no  rich  man  and 
no  poor  man  in  it,  all  mingling  in  the  same  society, 
every  child  at  the  same  school,  no  poorhouse,  no  beggar, 
opportunities  equal,  nobody  too  proud  to  stand  aloof,  no- 
body too  humble  to  be  shut  out.  That 's  New  England 
as  it  was  fifty  years  ago,  the  horrible  creature  that  the 
Daily  Advertiser  fears.  That 's  what  Framingham  pro- 
poses to  bring  about.  But  why  is  n't  Framingham 
contented  ?  Because  the  civilization  that  lingers  beau- 
tifully on  the  hillsides  of  New  England,  nestles  sweetly 
in  the  valleys  of  Vermont,  the  moment  it  approaches  a 
crowd  like  Boston,  or  a  million  of  men  gathered  in  one 
place  like  New  York,  —  rots.  It  cannot  force  the  crowd  ; 
it  cannot  stand  the  great  centres  of  modern  civilization. 
Our  civilization  cannot  stand  the  city.  One  reason  is, 
it  has  got  some  hidden  disease.  Another  reason  is,  the 
moment  it  flows  out  into  the  broad,  deep  activity  of  the 


164         THE    FOUNDATION    OF   THE    LABOR    MOVEMENT. 

nineteenth  century,  it  betrays  its  weakness,  and  copies 
Europe.  The  moment  this  sweet-scented,  dew-smelling 
Vermont  flows  down  into  the  slums  of  New  York,  it 
becomes  like  London.  The  moment  the  North  gathers 
its  forces,  and  goes  down  the  Mississippi  Valley  into 
New  Orleans,  social  science  stands  aghast.  .Modern 
civilization  shrinks  back  at  the  terrible  evil  which  she 
can  neither  fathom  nor  cure,  just  as  she  does  in  Europe. 

What  is  our  cause  ?  It  is  this :  there  are  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  millions  of  human  beings  in  what  you  call 
Christendom,  and  two  hundred  millions  of  them  don't 
have  enough  to  eat  from  January  to  December.  I  won't 
ask  for  culture,  for  opportunities  for  education,  for  travel, 
for  society ;  but  two  hundred  millions  of  men  gathered 
under  Christendom  don't  have  even  enough  to  eat.  A 
hundred  thousand  men  in  the  city  of  New  York  live  in 
dwellings  that  a  rich  man  would  n't  let  his  horse  stay 
in  a  day. 

But  that  is  n't  anything.  You  should  go  up  to  beau- 
tiful Berkshire  with  me,  into  the  factories  there.  It 
shall  be  the  day  after  a  Presidential  election.  I  will  go 
with  you  into  a  counting-room,  —  four  hundred  em- 
ployees. The  partners  are  sitting  down,  the  day  after  a 
Presidential  election.  They  take  the  list  of  workmen, 
and  sift  them  out ;  and  every  man  that  has  not  voted 
the  ticket  they  wanted  is  thrown  out  to  starve  just  as 
if  he  were  cattle.  That's  Christian  civilization  !  that's 
Massachusetts !  I  don't  like  that  significant  fact.  I 
leap  from  that  town  into  a  large  mill,  with  five  hundred 
employees,  and  say  to  the  master,  "  How  about  the  dwel- 
lings of  your  operatives  ?  How  many  hours  do  they 
have  at  home  ?  "  "  Well,  I  hope  they  don't  have  any. 
The  best-ventilated  place  they  are  ever  in  is  my  mill. 
They  had  better  stay  here  sixteen  hours  out  of  the 
twenty-four ;  it  keeps  them  out  of  mischief  better  than 


THE    FOUNDATION   OF   THE   LABOR   MOVEMENT.         165 

any  other  place.  As  long  as  they  work,  they  are  not  do- 
ing worse.  I  cannot  attend  to  their  houses."  I  say  to 
him,  "  It  seems  to  me  you  do  the  same  for  your  ox." 
That's  another  significant  fact  of  our  civilization.  I 
go  to  Lowell,  and  I  say  to  a  young  girl,  wandering  in 
the  streets,  "How  is  this?"  "Well,  I  worked  here 
seven  years,  and  I  thought  I  would  leave  that  mill  and 
go  to  another ;  and  the  corporation  won't  give  me  my 
ticket.  I  have  sued  them  in  the  Supreme  Court,  and  I 
cannot  get  it ;  and  here  I  am,  penniless,  in  Eastern 
Massachusetts."  That 's  Christian  civilization.  I  am 
picking  up,  not  individual  facts,  but  significant  rules, 
that  were  made  for  labor. 

You  say,  "  What  does  labor  need  in  New  England  ?  " 
It  needs  justice.  Mr.  Stewart,  in  New  York,  has  bought 
a  whole  town ;  and  he  is  going  to  build  model  houses, 
and  house  there  all  the  labor  he  can  get  to  go  into  them. 
Yet  the  civilization  which  alone  can  look  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  the  face  is  a  civilization  where  one  man  does 
not  depend  on  the  pity  of  another  man's  building  him  a 
model  lodging-house;  the  civilization  which  alone  can 
look  the  New  Testament  in  the  face  is  a  civilization 
where  one  man  could  not  build,  and  another  man  would 
not  need,  that  sort  of  refuge. 

No,  gentlemen,  what  we  mean  is  this :  The  labor  of 
yesterday,  your  capital,  is  protected  sacredly.  Not  so 
the  labor  of  to-day.  The  labor  of  yesterday  gets  twice 
the  protection  and  twice  the  pay  that  the  labor  of  to- 
day gets.  Capital  gets  twice  the  protection  and  twice 
the  pay.  C  .\^ 

Now,  we  mean  a  radical  change,  and  in  the  few  min- 
utes that  are  left  me,  I  want  to  indicate  our  object. 

We  mean  certain  great  radical  changes.  I  am  not 
quite  of  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Secretary  Boutwell,  when  he 
said  here  the  other  night,  that  fifty  years  hence  the  idea 


166         THE    FOUNDATION    OF   THE    LABOR   MOVEMENT. 

that  a  man  could  own  land,  and  leave  it  to  his  children, 
would  be  ridiculous.  I  have  not  quite  come  to  that. 
But  then,  you  know  there  is  a  reason  for  it ;  he  is  a 
radical,  and  I  have  always  been  a  conservative.  There 
is  a  curious  thing  underlies  lands.  We  are  not  quite 
certain  that  we  have  got  the  best  system.  Secretary 
Boutwell  may  be  right.  Seventy  years  ago  a  man  offered 
to  a  relative  of  mine  all  the  land  between  Federal  Street 
and  Hawley  Street,  between  Milk  Street  and  Franklin, 
for  thirty-three  hundred  dollars.  He  came  to  him  day 
after  day,  urging  him  to  purchase ;  and  the  answer  was, 
"  I  am  not  rich  enough  to  have  a  cow-pasture  at  that 
price,  and  I  couldn't  use  it  for  anything  else,"  —  that 
tract  of  land  which  to-day,  gentlemen,  as  you  know, 
would  sell  for  three  million  dollars.  Now,  labor  goes 
about,  like  Socrates,  asking  questions.  We  don't  assume 
anything.  When  we  were  little  boys,  and  did  our  sums 
on  the  slate,  and  the  answer  came  out  wrong,  we  did  n't 
break  the  slate.  We  went  to  the  master ;  and  he  said, 
"  Go  back  ;  there  's  a  mistake  somewhere  ;  if  you  exam- 
ine, you  will  find  it."  I  come  into  a  civilization  in 
which  two  men  out  of  three  don't  have  enough  to  eat. 
I  come  into  New  York,  where  it  is  a  rich  man  that  sup- 
plies a  lodging  for  houseless  poverty.  I  say  to  myself, 
"  That  course  is  n't  right ;  there 's  a  mistake  some- 
where." Do  unto  others  as  you  would  have  others  do 
unto  you.  The  end  of  things  is  New  York.  That 
does  n't  cohere.  Where  is  the  mistake  ?  It  is  some- 
where, and  the  Labor  movement  is  trying  to  find  it  out. 
Again,  gentlemen,  we  have  another  doubt  to  express. 
Are  you  quite  certain  that  capital  —  the  child  of  artifi- 
cial laws,  the  product  of  society,  the  mere  growth  of 
social  life — has  a  right  to  only  an  equal  burden  with 
labor,  the  living  spring  ?  We  doubt  it  so  much  that  we 
think  we  have  invented  a  way  to  defeat  Tom  Scott,  of 


THE    FOUNDATION    OF   THE   LABOR   MOVEMENT.         167 

the  Pennsylvania  Central.  We  think  we  have  devised 
a  little  plan  —  Ahraham  Lincoln  used  to  have  a  little 
story  —  by  which  we  will  save  the  Congress  of  the  Na- 
tion from  the  moneyed  corporations  of  the  State.  When 
we  get  into  power,  there  is  one  thing  we  mean  to  do. 
If  a  man  owns  a  single  house,  we  will  tax  him  one  hun- 
dred dollars.  If  he  owns  ten  houses  of  like  value,  we 
won't  tax  him  one  thousand  dollars,  but  two  thousand 
dollars.  If  he  owns  a  hundred  houses,  we  won't  tax 
him  ten  thousand  dollars,  but  sixty  thousand  dollars ; 
and  the  richer  a  man  grows,  the  bigger  his  tax,  so  that 
when  he  is  worth  forty  million  dollars  he  will  not  have 
more  than  twenty  thousand  dollars  a  year  to  live  on. 
We  '11  double  and  treble  and  quintuple  and  sextuple  and 
increase  tenfold  the  taxes,  till  Stewart,  out  of  his  un- 
counted millions,  and  the  Pennsylvania  Central,  out  of 
its  measureless  income,  shall  not  have  anything  more 
than  a  moderate  lodging  and  an  honest  table.  The  cor- 
porations we  would  have  are  those  of  associated  labor 
and  capital,  —  co-operation. 

We  '11  crumble  up  wealth  by  making  it  unprofitable 
to  be  rich.  The  poor  man  shall  have  a  larger  income 
in  proportion  as  he  is  poor.  The  rich  man  shall  have  a 
lesser  income  in  proportion  as  he  is  rich.  You  will  say, 
"  Is  that  just?"  My  friends,  it  is  safe.  Man  is  more 
valuable  than  money.  You  say,  "  Then  capital  will  go 
to  Europe."  Good  heavens,  let  it  go  ! 

If  other  States  wish  to  make  themselves  vassals  to 
wealth,  so  will  not  we.  We  will  fare  a  country  equal 
from  end  to  end.  Land,  private  property,  all  sorts  of 
property,  shall  be  so  dearly  taxed  that  it  shall  be  impos- 
sible to  be  rich ;  for  it  is  in  wealth,  in  incorporated, 
combining,  perpetuated  wealth,  that  the  danger  of  labor 
lies. 


THE   LABOR  QUESTION. 


Delivered  before  the  International  Grand  Lodge  of  the  Knights  of 
Saint  Crispin,  in  April,  1872. 

/^ENTLEMEN,  I  feel  honored  by  this  welcome  of 
^J  your  organization,  and  especially  so  when  I  con- 
sider that  the  marvellously  rapid  success  of  the  political 
strength  of  the  Labor  movement,  especially  in  New  Eng- 
land, is  due  mainly  to  this  organization.  There  never 
has  been  a  party  formed  that  in  three  years  has  at- 
tracted toward  itself  such  profound  attention  throughout 
the  United  States.  Some  of  you  may  be  old  enough  to 
remember  that  when  the  Antislavery  sentiment,  nearly 
thirty  years  ago,  endeavored  to  rally  a  political  party,  it 
took  them  some  seven  or  nine  years  before  they  had  an 
organization  that  could  be  considered  national  in  any 
real  sense.  The  political  Labor  movement  in  three 
years  has  reached  a  position  of  influence  which  it  took 
that  idea  nine  years  to  obtain. 

I  trace  that  rapid  progress  in  popular  recognition  to 
the  existence  of  these  Crispin  lodges  and  trades-unions 
of  the  State.  You  cannot  marshal  fifty  thousand  men 
at  once,  taken  promiscuously  from  parties  and  sects  ; 
they  must  be  trained  to  work  together,  they  must  be  dis- 
ciplined in  co-operation ;  and  it  is  the  training  and  the 
discipline  which  the  working-men  got  in  these  organiza- 
tions that  enabled  the  Labor  movement  to  assume  its 
proportions  so  rapidly. 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION.  169 

Then,  again,  I  stand  here  with  great  interest  from 
another  consideration,  —  I  stand  in  the  presence  of  a 
momentous  power.  I  do  not  care  exactly  what  your 
idea  is  as  to  how  you  will  work,  whether  you  will  work 
in  this  channel  or  in  the  other.  I  am  told  that  you  rep- 
resent from  seventy  thousand  to  one  hundred  thousand 
men,  here  and  elsewhere.  Think  of  it !  A  hundred 
thousand  men  !  They  can  dictate  the  fate  of  this  na- 
tion. Give  me  fifty  thousand  men  in  earnest,  who  can 
agree  on  all  vital  questions,  who  will  plant  their  shoul- 
ders together,  and  swear  by  all  that  is  true  and  just  that 
for  the  long  years  they  will  put  their  great  idea  before 
the  country,  and  those  fifty  thousand  men  will  govern 
the  nation.  So  if  I  have  one  hundred  thousand  men 
represented  before  me,  who  are  in  earnest,  who  get  hold 
of  the  great  question  of  labor,  and  having  hold  of  it, 
grapple  with  it,  and  rip  it  and  tear  it  open,  and  invest  it 
with  light,  gathering  the  facts,  piercing  the  brains  about 
them  and  crowding  those  brains  with  the  facts,  —  then  I 
know,  sure  as  fate,  though  I  may  not  live  to  see  it,  that 
they  will  certainly  conquer  this  nation  in  twenty  years. 
It  is  impossible  tjiat  they  should  not.  And  that  is  your 
power,  gentlemen. 

I  rejoice  at  every  effort  working-men  make  to  organ- 
ize; I  do  not  care  on  what  basis  they  do  it.  Men  some- 
times say  to  me,  "  Are  you  an  Internationalist  ?  "  I  say, 
*'  I  do  not  know  \vhat  an  Internationalist  is  ; "  but  they 
tell  me  it  is  a  system  by  which  the  working-men  from 
London  to  Gibraltar,  from  Moscow  to  Paris,  can  clasp 
hands.  Then  I  say  God  speed,  God  speed,  to  that  or  any 
similar  movement. 

Now,  let  me  tell  you  where  the  great  weakness  of  an 
association  of  working-men  is.  It  is  that  it  cannot  wait. 
It  does  not  know  where  it  is  to  get  its  food  for  next 
week.  If  it  is  kept  idle  for  ten  days,  the  funds  of  the 


170  THE   LABOR   QUESTION. 

society  are  exhausted.  Capital  can  fold  its  arms,  and 
wait  six  months  ;  it  can  wait  a  year.  It  will  be  poorer, 
but  it  does  not  get  to  the  bottom  of  the  purse.  It  can 
afford  to  wait ;  it  can  tire  you  out,  and  starve  you  out. 
And  what  is  there  against  that  immense  preponderance 
of  power  on  the  part  of  capital  ?  Simply  organization. 
That  makes  the  wealth  of  all,  the  wealth  of  every  one.  So 
I  welcome  organization.  I  do  not  care  whether  it  calls 
itself  Trades-union,  Crispin,  International,  or  Commune  ; 
anything  that  masses  up  the  units  in  order  that  they  may 
put  in  a  united  force  to  face  the  organization  of  capital, 
anything  that  does  that,  I  say  amen  to  it.  One  hundred 
thousand  men !  It  is  an  immense  army.  I  do  not  care 
whether  it  considers  chiefly  the  industrial  or  the  political 
questions ;  it  can  control  the  nation  if  it  is  in  earnest. 
The  reason  why  the  Abolitionists  brought  the  nation 
down  to  fighting  their  battle  is  that  they  were  really  in 
earnest,  knew  what  they  wanted,  and  were  determined 
to  have  it.  Therefore  they  got  it.  The  leading  states- 
men and  orators  of  the  day  said  they  would  never  urge 
abolition  ;  but  a  determined  man  in  a  printing-office  said 
that  they  should,  and  they  did  it. 

And  so  it  is  with  this  question  exactly.  Brains 
govern  this  country  ;  and  I  hope  to  God  the  time  will 
never  come  when  brains  won't  govern  it,  for  they  ought 
to.  And  the  way  in  which  you  can  compel  the  brains  to 
listen  and  to  attend  to  you  on  the  question  of  labor,  ac- 
tually to  concentrate  the  intellectual  power  of  the  nation 
upon  it,  is  by  gathering  together  by  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands, no  matter  whether  it  be  on  an  industrial  basis  or 
a  political  basis,  and  saying  to  the  nation,  "  We  are  the 
numbers,  and  we  will  be  heard,"  and  you  may  be  sure 
that  you  will.  Now,  an  Englishman  has  but  one  method 
to  pursue,  to  be  heard.  He  puts  his  arm  up  among  the 
cog-wheels  of  the  industrial  machine,  and  stops  it.  That 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION.  171 

is  a  strike.  The  London  Times  looks  down  and  says, 
"What  in  heaven  is  the  matter?"  That  is  just  what 
the  man  wants ;  he  wishes  to  eall  public  attention  to  the 
facts,  and  the  consequence  is  that  every  newspaper  joins 
with  the  Times,  and  asks  what  is  the  matter,  and  the 
whole  brain  of  the  English  nation  is  turned  to  consider 
the  question.  That  is  good,  but  we  have  a  quicker  way 
than  that.  We  do  not  need  to  put  our  hands  up  among 
the  cog-wheels,  and  stop  the  machine.  Pierpont  said  of 
the  little  ballot,  — 

"  It  executes  the  freeman's  will, 
As  lightning  does  the  will  of  God." 

Now,  I  turn  my  sight  that  way  because  I  am  a  Demo- 
crat, a  Jeffersonian  Democrat  in  the  darkest  hour.  Eng- 
land can  look  down  into  Lancashire,  rotting  in  ignor- 
ance ;  and  if  the  people  there  rise  up  to  claim  their  share 
of  the  enjoyments  of  life,  she  need  not  care,  because  she 
says,  "  I  have  got  the  laws  of  state  in  the  hands  of  the 
middle  classes ;  and  if  that  man  down  there  can  han- 
dle a  spade,  or  work  in  a  mill,  it  is  all  I  want  of  him ; 
and,  if  he  ever  raises  his  hand  against  the  State,  I  will 
put  my  cavalrymen  into  the  saddle,  and  ride  him  down." 
The  man  is  nothing  but  a  tool  to  do  a  certain  work. 

But  when  America  looks  down  into  her  Lancashire, 
into  the  mines  of  Pennsylvania,  she  says  literally,  "  Well, 
his  hand  holds  the  ballot,  and  I  cannot  afford  to  leave 
him  down  there  in  ignorance."  I  admire  democracy  be- 
cause it  takes  bonds  of  wealth  and  power,  that  they 
shall  raise  the  masses.  If  they  don't  do  it,  there  is  no 
security.  Therefore,  on  every  great  question  I  turn  in- 
stantly to  politics.  It  is  the  people's  normal  school  ;  it 
is  the  way  to  make  the  brains  of  the  nation  approach  the 
subject.  Why,  in  1861  or  1862,  when  I  first  approached 
this  question,  you  could  not  get  an  article  on  the  Labor 


172  THE   LABOR   QUESTION. 

movement  in  any  newspaper  or  magazine,  unless,  indeed, 
there  was  a  strike,  or  something  of  that  sort.  Now  you 
cannot  take  up  any  of  the  leading  newspapers  or  maga- 
zines without  finding  them  full  of  it ;  editors  eat,  drink, 
and  sleep  on  it.  The  question  is  so  broad,  it  has  so 
many  different  channels,  that  it  puzzles  them.  Even 
John  Stuart  Mill  has  not  attempted  to  cover  its  whole 
breadth.  It  takes  in  everything. 

Let  me  tell  you  why  I  am  interested  in  the  Labor 
Question.  Not  simply  because  of  the  long  hours  of 
labor  ;  not  simply  because  of  a  specific  oppression  of  a 
class.  I  sympathize  with  the  sufferers  there;  I  am 
ready  to  fight  on  their  side.  But  I  look  out  upon  Chris- 
tendom, with  its  three  hundred  millions  of  people,  and  1 
see,  that,  out  of  this  number  of  people,  one  hundred  mil- 
lions never  had  enough  to  eat.  Physiologists  tell  us 
that  this  body  of  ours,  unless  it  is  properly  fed,  properly 
developed,  fed  with  rich  blood  and  carefully  nourished, 
does  no  justice  to  the  brain.  You  cannot  make  a  bright 
or  a  good  man  in  a  starved  body ;  and  so  this  one 
third  of  the  inhabitants  of  Christendom,  who  have  never 
had  food  enough,  can  never  be  what  they  should  be. 

Now,  I  say  that  the  social  civilization  which  condemns 
every  third  man  in  it  to  be  below  the  average  in  the 
nourishment  God  prepared  for  him,  did  not  come  from 
above ;  it  came  from  below ;  and  the  sooner  it  goes 
down,  the  better.  Come  on  this  side  of  the  ocean. 
You  will  find  forty  millions  of  people,  and  I  suppose 
they  are  in  the  highest  state  of  civilization ;  and  yet  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say,  that,  out  of  that  forty  millions,  ten 
millions,  at  least,  who  get  up  in  the  morning  and  go  to 
bed  at  night,  spend  all  the  day  in  the  mere  effort  to  get 
bread  enough  to  live.  They  have  not  elasticity  enough, 
mind  or  body,  left  to  do  anything  in  the  way  of  intellec- 
tual or  moral  progress. 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION.  173 

I  take  a  man,  for  instance,  in  one  of  the  manufactur- 
ing valleys  of  Connecticut.  If  you  get  into  the  cars  there 
at  6.30  o'clock  in  the  morning,  as  I  have  done,  you  will 
find,  getting  in  at  every  little  station,  a  score  or  more  of 
laboring  men  and  women,  with  their  dinner  in  a  pail ; 
and  they  get  out  at  some  factory  that  is  already  lighted 
up.  Go  down  the  same  valley  about  7.30  in  the  evening, 
and  you  will  again  see  them  going  home.  They  must 
have  got  up  about  5.30  ;  they  are  at  their  work  until  nigh 
upon  eight  o'clock.  There  is  a  good,  solid  fourteen 
hours.  Now,  there  will  be  a  strong,  substantial  man, 
like  Cobbett,  for  instance,  who  will  sit  up  nights  study- 
ing, and  who  will  be  a  scholar  at  last  among  them,  per- 
haps ;  but  he  is  an  expert.  The  average  man,  nine  out 
of  ten,  when  he  gets  home  at  night,  does  not  care  to 
read  an  article  from  the  North  American,  nor  a  long 
speech  from  Charles  Sumner.  No ;  if  he  can't  have  a 
good  story,  and  a  warm  supper,  and  a  glass  of  grog  per- 
haps, he  goes  off  to  bed.  Now,  I  say  that  the  civiliza- 
tion that  has  produced  this  state  of  things  in  nearly  the 
hundredth  year  of  the  American  Republic  did  not  come 
from  above. 

I  believe  in  the  Temperance  movement.  I  am  a  Tem- 
perance man  of  nearly  forty  years'  standing  ;  and  I  think 
it  one  of  the  grandest  things  in  the  world,  because  it 
holds  the  basis  of  self-control.  Intemperance  is  the 
cause  of  poverty,  I  know ;  but  there  is  another  side  to 
that,  —  poverty  is  the  cause  of  intemperance.  Crowd  a 
man  with  fourteen  hours'  work  a  day,  and  you  crowd 
him  down  to  a  mere  animal  life.  You  have  eclipsed  his 
aspirations,  dulled  his  tastes,  stunted  his  intellect,  and 
made  him  a  mere  tool,  to  work  fourteen  hours  and  catch 
a  thought  in  the  interval ;  and  while  one  man  in  a  hun- 
dred will  rise  to  be  a  genius,  ninety-nine  will  cower  down 
under  the  circumstances.  Now,  I  can  tell  you  a  fact. 


174  THE   LABOR    QUESTION. 

In  London,  the  other  day,  it  was  found  that  one  club  of 
gentlemen,  a  thousand  strong,  spent  twenty  thousand  dol- 
lars at  the  club-house  during  the  year  for  drink.  Well, 
I  would  allow  them  twenty  thousand  dollars  more  at 
home  for  liquor,  making  in  all  forty  thousand  dollars  a 
year.  These  men  were  all  men  of  education  and  leisure  ; 
they  had  books  and  paintings,  opera,  race-course,  and 
regatta.  A  thousand  men  down  in  Portsmouth  in  a 
ship-yard,  working  under  a  boss,  spent  at  the  grog-shops 
of  the  place,  in  that  year,  eighty  thousand  dollars,  - 
double  that  of  their  rich  brethren.  What  is  the  explana- 
tion of  such  a  fact  as  that  ?  Why,  the  club-man  had  a 
circle  of  pleasures  and  of  company ;  the  operative,  after 
he  had  worked  fourteen  hours,  had  nothing  to  look  for- 
ward to  but  his  grog. 

That  is  why  I  say,  lift  a  man,  give  him  life,  let  him 
work  eight  hours  a  day,  give  him  the  school,  develop  his 
taste  for  music,  give  him  a  garden,  give  him  beautiful 
things  to  see,  and  good  books  to  read,  and  you  will 
starve  out  those  lower  appetites.  Give  a  man  a  chance 
to  earn  a  good  living,  and  you  may  save  his  life.  So  it 
is  with  women  in  prostitution.  Poverty  is  the  road  to 
it ;  it  is  this  that  makes  them  the  prey  of  the  wealth  and 
the  leisure  of  another  class.  Give  a  hundred  men  in 
this  country  good  wages  and  eight  hours'  work,  and 
ninety-nine  will  disdain  to  steal.  Give  a  hundred 
women  a  good  chance  to  get  a  good  living,  and  ninety- 
nine  of  them  will  disdain  to  barter  their  virtue  for  gold. 

You  will  find  in  our  criminal  institutions  to-day  a  great 
many  men  with  big  brains,  who  ought  to  have  risen  in 
the  world,  —  perhaps  gone  to  Congress.  You  may  laugh, 
but  I  tell  you  the  biggest  brains  don't  go  to  Congress. 
Now,  take  a  hundred  criminals :  ten  of  them  will  be 
smart  men ;  but  take  the  remainder,  and  eighty  of  them 
are  below  the  average,  body  and  mind, —  they  were,  as 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION.  175 

Charles  Lamb  said,  "  never  brought  up ;  they  were 
dragged  up."  They  never  had  any  fair  chance ;  the\- 
were  starved  in  body  and  mind.  It  is  like  a  chain  weak 
in  one  link ;  the  moment  temptation  came,  it  went  over. 
Now,  just  so  long  as  you  hold  two  thirds  of  this  nation 
on  a  narrow,  superficial  line,  you  feed  the  criminal 
classes. 

Any  man  that  wants  to  grapple  with  the  Labor  Question 
must  know  how  you  will  secure  a  fair  division  of  pro- 
duction. No  man  answers  that  question. 

I  hail  the  Labor  movement  for  two  reasons ;  and  one 
is,  that  it  is  my  only  hope  for  democracy.  At  the  time 
of  the  Antislavery  agitation,  I  was  not  sure  whether  we 
should  come  out  of  the  struggle  with  one  republic  or 
two ;  but  republics  1  knew  we  should  still  be.  I  am  not 
so  confident,  indeed,  that  we  shall  come  out  of  this  storm 
as  a  republic,  unless  the  Labor  movement  succeeds. 
Take  a  power  like  the  Pennsylvania  Central  Railroad 
and  the  New  York  Central  Railroad,  and  there  is  no 
legislative  independence  that  can  exist  in  its  sight.  As 
well  expect  a  green  vine  to  flourish  in  a  dark  cellar  as  to 
expect  honesty  to  exist  under  the  shadow  of  those  upas- 
trees.  Unless  there  is  a  power  in  your  movement, 
industrially  and  politically,  the  last  knell  of  democratic 
liberty  in  this  Union  is  struck ;  for  as  I  said,  there  is 
no  power  in  one  State  to  resist  such  a  giant  as  the 
Pennsylvania  road.  We  have  thirty-eight  one-horse 
legislatures  in  this  country  ;  and  we  have  got  a  man  like 
Tom  Scott,  with  three  hundred  and  fifty  million  dollars 
in  his  hands  ;  and,  if  he  walks  through  the  States,  they 
have  no  power.  Why,  lie  need  not  move  at  all.  If  he 
smokes,  as  Grant  does,  a  puff  of  the  waste  smoke  out  of 
his  mouth  upsets  the  legislature. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  but  the  rallying  of  men  against 
money  that  can  contest  with  that  power.  Rally  indus- 


176  THE   LABOR   QUESTION. 

trially  if  you  will ;  rally  for  eight  hours,  for  a  little  divis- 
ion of  profits,  for  co-operation ;  rally  for  such  a  banking- 
power  in  the  government  as  would  give  us  money  at 
three  per  cent. 

Only  organize,  and  stand  together.  Claim  something 
together,  and  at  once ;  let  the  nation  hear  a  united 
demand  from  the  laboring  voice,  and  then,  when  you 
have  got  that,  go  on  after  another;  but  get  something. 

I  say,  let  the  debts  of  the  country  be  paid,  abolish 
the  banks,  and  let  the  government  lend  every  Illinois 
farmer  (if  he  wants  it),  who  is  now  borrowing  money 
at  ten  per  cent,  money  on  the  half-value  of  his  land  at 
three  per  cent.  The  same  policy  that  gave  a  million 
acres  to  the  Pacific  Railroad,  because  it  was  a  great 
national  effort,  will  allow  of  our  lending  Chicago  twenty 
millions  of  money,  at  three  per  cent,  to  rebuild  it. 

From  Boston  to  New  Orleans,  from  Mobile  to  Roch- 
ester, from  Baltimore  to  St.  Louis,  we  have  now  but 
one  purpose ;  and  that  is,  having  driven  all  other  politi- 
cal questions  out  of  the  arena,  having  abolished  slavery, 
the  only  question  left  is  labor,  —  the  relations  of  capital 
and  labor.  The  night  before  Charles  Sumner  left  Bos- 
ton for  Washington  the  last  time,  he  said  to  me,  u  I 
have  just  one  more  thing  to  do  for  the  negro,  —  to  carry 
the  Civil  Rights  Bill ;  and  after  that  is  passed,  I  shall 
be  at  liberty  to  take  up  the  question  of  labor." 

Now,  one  word  in  conclusion.  If  you  do  your  duty, 
—  and  by  that  I  mean  standing  together  and  being  true 
to  each  other,  —  the  Presidental  election  you  will  decide, 
every  State  election  you  may  decide  if  you  please. 

If  you  want  power  in  this  country ;  if  you  want  to 
make  yourselves  felt ;  if  you  do  not  want  your  children 
to  wait  long  years  before  they  have  the  bread  on  the 
table  they  ought  to  have,  the  leisure  in  their  lives  they 
ought  to  have,  the  opportunities  in  life  they  ought  to 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION.  177 

have ;  if  you  don't  want  to  wait  yourselves,  —  write  on 
your  banner,  so  that  every  political  trimmer  can  read 
it,  so  that  every  politician,  no  matter  how  short  sighted 
he  may  be,  can  read  it,  "  We  never  forget !  If  you 
launch  the  arrow  of  sarcasm  at  labor,  we  never  forget ; 
if  there  is  a  division  in  Congress,  and  you  throw  your 
vote  in  the  wrong  scale,  we  never  forget.  You  may  go 
down  on  your  knees,  and  say, '  1  am  sorry  I  did  the  act ; ' 
and  we  will  say,  '  It  will  avail  you  in  heaven,  but  on 
this  side  of  the  grave  never.' "  So  that  a  man,  in  tak- 
ing up  the  Labor  Question,  will  know  he  is  dealing  with 
a  hair-trigger  pistol,  and  will  say,  "  I  am  to  be  true  to 
justice  and  to  man  ;  otherwise  I  am  a  dead  duck." 


12 


THE  MAINE  LIQUOR  LAW; 

OR, 

THE  LAWS  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH— SHALL 
THEY  BE  ENFORCED? 


Address  before  the  Legislative  Committee,  February  23,  1865. 


c 

\   n 


ENTLEMEN  OP  THE  COMMITTEE  :  The  question  you 
have  to  consider  at  this  time  grows  out  of  the 
question  of  Temperance,  —  the  interference  with  the 
sale,  the  public  sale,  of  intoxicating  drinks.  It  is  not  a 
new  question.  What  we  call  the  Temperance  cause  in 
this  Commonwealth  is  half  a  century  old  ;  and  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water,  if  you  analyze  strictly  the  legis- 
lation of  the  old  countries,  the  attempt  to  limit  and  pro- 
hibit, to  a  certain  extent,  in  the  cause  of  public  protection, 
the  free  use  and  sale  of  intoxicating  liquor,  is  many  cen- 
uries  old.  The  new  point  in  the  discussion  is,  that  any 
man  should  assume  that  a  government  trespasses  on  the 
rights  of  individuals  when  it  attempts,  at  last,  to  legis- 
late on  this  subject.  I  think  I  may  safely  say,  that 
there  is  no  statute-book  in  the  world,  no  matter  how 
old  its  first  page  is,  —  no  statute-book  since  the  dis- 
covery of  alcohol,  —  which  has  not  in  it  a  law  in  regard 
to  this  subject  ;  and  if  you  go  behind  the  Christian  era, 
and  into  the  legislation  of  the  older  countries,  the  same 
attempt  is  visible,  1  think,  there.  We  are  not,  therefore, 
trying  to  gain  or  clutch  any  new  ground  ;  we  are  only 


THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW.  179 

examining  the  method  by  which  an  old  and  constantly 
acknowledged  power  shall  be  used. 

Again,  some  men  say  the  Temperance  cause  is  a  very 
narrow,  petty,  sentimental  enterprise,  fit  for  half-witted 
men,  weak-minded  women,  theorists,  but  utterly  repudi- 
ated by  the  manly  and  practical  intellect  and  common- 
sense  of  the  public.  On  the  contrary,  to  my  mind,  the 
Temperance  cause  is  one  of  the  weightiest,  broadest, 
most  momentous,  that  a  citizen,  under  democratic  insti- 
tutions, can  contemplate,  —  especially  under  democratic 
institutions  here,  and  leading  a  race  like  ours. 

Every  race,  every  blood,  every  climate,  has  its  own  spe- 
cial temptation.  The  tropics  have  one,  the  colder  climates 
have  another.  Some  races  are  distinguished  from  others 
by  peculiar  temptation  and  weakness.  Our  climate,  our 
blood,  is  peculiarly  open  to  the  necessity  of  material 
stimulus,  something  that  shall  wake  up  and  hurry  the 
currents  of  the  blood.  The  old  idea  of  heaven,  to  the 
fathers  of  our  race,  was  a  drunken  revel,  overflowing 
with  mead  and  every  intoxicating  drink.  The  race 
craves  these  stimulants  naturally,  and  still  more  inci- 
dentally, —  from  the  fast  life,  from  the  incessant  activ- 
ity, from  the  hurried  and  excited  nature  which  modern 
life  gives  us, — from  some  special  need  of  the  body  itself. 

That  is  our  temptation.  Again,  science,  in  modern 
times,  has  elaborated  the  processes  of  manufacturing 
intoxicating  liquor  to  such  a  cheap  and  lavish  extent,  that 
a  man  with  one  hour's  work  may  be  drunk  a  day ;  with 
one-half  day's  toil  may  spread  his  drunkenness  over  a 
week.  And  yet,  with  this  blood,  and  with  science  hold- 
ing out  this  temptation,  and  wages  holding  out  these 
means,  and  the  heavy  working  of  republican  institutions 
resting  on  the  basis  of  the  people  themselves,  with  no 
breakwater  of  bayonet  or  of  despotism,  —  the  sense, 
virtue,  purpose  of  the  masses,  the  pedestal  upon  which 


180  THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW. 

the  great,  heavy  machine  of  government  must  be  built, 
—  with  these  yawning  gulfs  on  each  side  our  national 
progress,  there  are  men  who  set  their  faces  against  the 
Temperance  agitation,  and  bid  us  beware  of  taking  up 
too  much  time  with  the  narrow  and  petty  interest  which 
we  assume  to  champion !  A  drunken  people  were  never 
the  safe  depositaries  of  the  power  of  self-government. 
Hurried  on,  the  mere  victims  of  demagogues,  uncon- 
trollable passion  their  temptation  and  their  guide,  who 
can  safely  trust  his  future  and  the  institutions  secured 
by  such  toil  and  such  blood,  to  a  race  making  or  groping 
its  way  amid  such  evils  and  such  weakness  ?  1  contend 
that  every  man  who  desires  the  security  of  democratic 
institutions  is  to  see  to  it,  first  of  all,  that  every  possible 
means  be  exhausted  to  secure,  so  far  as  human  means 
can,  a  sober  people.  To  my  mind,  that  is  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  Temperance  enterprise.  I  know  its  other 
phases,  alluded  to  by  my  friend,  Rev.  A.  A.  Miner,  who 
has  just  stood  here,  —  the  domestic  desolation,  the  indi- 
vidual ruin,  the  spiritual  wreck,  the  pecuniary  loss,  the 
family  destruction.  1  know  all  that;  and  to  the  right 
mind,  there  lies  the  real  strength  of  the  Temperance 
agitation.  But  if  any  man  is  of  too  low  a  level,  too 
sordid  a  logic  to  appreciate  or  acknowledge  that  argu- 
ment, at  least  citizenship  and  patriotism,  at  least  selfish- 
ness may  be  brought,  for  one  moment,  to  reflect,  when 
the  very  ground  around  him  rests  secure  only  so  long  as 
the  statute-book  is  upborne,  and  the  rights  of  life  and 
property  secured  by  a  sober  people. 

The  question  which  we  meet  to  discuss  to-night  is  one 
of  this  nature,  —  whether  this  great  principle  is  to  have 
a  fair  trial  ?  Mark  me  !  That  is  my  text,  —  Whether 
this  great  principle  is  to  have  in  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts  a  fair  trial?  That  is  all  we  ask.  Boston 
is  a  part  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts.  The 


THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW.  181 

law  that  prevails  in  Boston  is  made  in  yonder  state- 
house  and  recorded  in  the  statute-book  of  the  Common- 
wealth. The  question  to  be  asked  in  regard  to  such  law 
is,  whether  the  public  opinion  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts  demands  it  ?  If  that  opinion  does,  then 
Boston  has  one  duty,  and  but  one,  —  to  obey  it.  Is  there 
anything  undemocratic  in  that  ?  Is  there  any  breach  of 
municipal  or  individual  liberty  in  that  ?  Has  Boston 
seceded  from  Berkshire  ?  I  contend  that  Boston  is  a 
part  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  and  bound 
to  obey  her  law.  Now,  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachu- 
setts, after  thirty  years  of  discussion,  after  the  most  ex- 
haustive debate,  after  statistics  piled  mountain  high  on 
both  sides,  after  every  other  method  has  been  tried  and 
has  failed,  has  decided  that  what  is  called  the  Maine 
Liquor  Law  shall  be  the  law  of  the  Commonwealth. 

That  is  not  sentiment,  that  is  a  fact.  If  you  doubt  it, 
go  to  the  Secretary  of  State's  office  and  get  a  certified 
copy.  That  is  an  indisputable  fact,  that  the  Common- 
wealth of  Massachusetts  has  deliberately  chosen  this 
method  of  carrying  out  her  Temperance  purpose. 

Does  any  man  say  it  is  not  a  good  method  ?  My  friend, 
that  is  not  admissible.  We  have  floated  beyond  that 
level  of  argument.  The  liquor  dealers  say  it  is  not  a 
good  method.  You  are  out  of  order !  Sit  down  !  You  do 
not  belong  to  this  stage  of  discussion !  Mark  you !  We 
have  funded  thirty  years  of  labor  in  that  statute  which 
the  Governor  has  signed  and  the  Secretary  of  State  has 
sealed.  When  it  was  first  enacted,  the  liquor  dealers  of 
the  State  did  not  like  it.  They  went  to  the  legislature, 
but  the  legislature  stood  unmoved.  Having  failed  there, 
they  went  to  the  Supreme  Court.  The  Supreme  Court, 
after  thorough  investigation,  said,  "  It  is  law !  "  How 
far,  then,  have  the  Temperance  people  travelled  ?  Let 
us  stop,  and  take  an  inventory.  We  have  a  law  on 


182  THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW. 

the  statute-book.  We  have  a  reiterated  decision  of 
the  legislature,  that  that  is  their  sober,  second  purpose. 
We  have  further  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
that  it  is  constitutional.  So  far  we  have  got.  Now, 
what  comes  next  ?  The  various  elements  that  go  to 
make  up  the  State  are  to  obey  it,  are  they  not  ?  Here 
is  our  claim ;  if  you  do  not  like  it,  go  back  into  the 
arena,  and  agitate  against  it.  Get  up  your  tracts,  your 
circulars,  your  lectures,  your  public  conventions,  and 
assail  the  Gibraltar  of  the  legislature ;  and  when  you 
have  carried  it,  we  will  sit  down  and  put  our  hands  on 
our  lips.  There  is  where  we  demand  that  the  liquor  in- 
terest shall  meet  us,  —  in  the  convention,  in  the  lecture- 
room,  anywhere,  —  to  agitate  against  the  law.  We  are 
ready  to  meet  them.  We  went  through  thirty  years  of 
such  agitation.  We  tried  license,  we  tried  the  fifteen- 
gallon  law,  —  every  method,  —  and  we  failed. 

Let  me  turn  aside  to  say  one  word  here.  The  chief 
of  police  said,  in  1863,  that  he  thought  it  would  be  a 
good  thing  to  have  a  license  system.  Well,  our  argu- 
ment is,  "  Gentlemen,  we  tried  it  for  two  hundred  years, 
and  it  failed.  Do  let  us  try  this  fifty  years.  Is  that  an 
unfair  demand  ?  " 

From  the  method  in  which  gentlemen  address  us,  one 
would  suppose  that  there  never  was  a  State  that  tried 
licensing ;  that  it  was  a  new  thought,  just  struck  out 
from  some  happy  intellect,  elevated  by  a  glass  of  cham- 
pagne [laughter  and  applause]  ;  whereas  license  is  as 
old  as  Plymouth  Rock.  The  Commonwealth  began  witli 
it,  and  they  came  up  to  the  year  1855  ;  and  every  philan- 
thropist, every  lover  of  his  country  and  his  city,  was 
pale  and  aghast  at  the  gigantic  strides  which  this  vice 
was  making,  —  at  the  tremendous  yawning  gulf  in  which 
all  public  virtue  seemed  about  to  be  swallowed  up.  Pul- 
pit, forum,  legislature,  counting-house,  —  every  walk  of 


THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW.  183 

life,  public  and  private,  was  rotten  to  the  very  core. 
Now,  therefore,  what  we  have  gained  is  a  law  reiterated. 
We  have  got  the  court  and  the  legislature  on  our  side ; 
what  further  do  we  ask  ?  Well,  in  the  various  counties 
of  the  State,  more  or  less  direct  and  honest  effort  has 
been  made  to  carry  out  the  law.  We  do  not  stop  to  say 
how  honest  or  how  direct ;  that  is  not  our  business  to- 
night. Our  business  is  with  the  fact,  that  in  this  city  no 
effort  has  ever  been  made  to  carry  it  out ;  and  in  say- 
ing that  I  am  not  throwing  any  particular  blame  on  any 
individual  officer.  The  mayor  and  the  aldermen  are  as 
good  as  the  average ;  our  police  agents  and  subordinates 
are  not  open  to  exception.  It  is  not  the  machine,  it  is 
the  creator  of  the  machine  with  whom  we  quarrel.  It  is 
not  the  police  nor  the  mayor,  but  it  is  the  elements  that 
make  both. 

The  reasons  why  no  effort  has  been  made,  are  plain 
enough  on  the  very  surface  of  affairs.  They  were  alluded 
to  by  my  friend,  Rev.  Dr.  Miner,  just  now.  Nineteen 
hundred  and  fifty-one  places  in  this  city,  where,  illegally, 
liquor  is  sold,  in  open  defiance  of  the  law ;  eight  or  ten 
millions  of  dollars  on  this  peninsula  invested  in  the 
manufacture  and  sale  of  liquor ;  two  or  three  million 
dollars'  worth  sold  and  consumed  annually  in  the  city 
itself.  Every  man  familiar  with  the  machinery  of  demo- 
cratic institutions  knows  that  two  thousand  men,  with 
ten  millions  of  dollars  behind  them,  commanding  from 
three  to  seven  thousand  votes,  as  they  readily  may,  can 
hold  the  balance  in  any  election,  and  make  it  beyond 
question  that  no  candidate  can  ever  be  ventured  by 
either  party,  who  is  not  pledged,  publicly  or  privately, 
not  to  execute  this  law  of  the  State.  Every  man  knows 
that  that  power,  thus  massed  up,  can  control  the  muni- 
cipal government  of  the  city  of  Boston.  But  we  are  not 
now  finding  fault  with  this  state  of  things.  We  only 


184  THE   MAINE    LIQUOR   LAW. 

say  that  in  consequence  of  that,  or  of  something  else,  the 
city  of  Boston  says  to  us  by  the  voice  of  her  attorneys, 
her  aldermen,  her  mayor,  "  We  cannot  execute  your 
law."  We  take  her  at  her  word.  Year  after  year  she 
comes  to  the  legislature  and  says,  "  We  cannot  execute 
your  law."  Well,  there  are  two  paths  open,  —  one  path 
is,  Repeal  the  law  ;  the  other  path  is,  Try  somebody  else 
to  execute  it.  Suppose  the  engineer  of  the  Fitchburg 
road  should  report  to  the  directors,  "  I  can't  run  your 
engine  beyond  Groton."  Two  courses  would  be  open  for 
the  directors.  One  would  be  to  take  up  the  rails  west  of 
Groton,  the  other  to  get  a  new  engineer.  Which  do  you 
suppose  they  would  adopt  ?  [Applause.]  The  city  of 
Boston  says  to  the  Commonwealth,  —  a  Commonwealth 
that  after  thirty  years  of  discussion,  after  two  hundred 
years  of  patient  experiment,  announces  a  new  plan,  a 
plan  successful  to  a  marvellous  extent  elsewhere,  —  the 
city  of  Boston  says,  "  We  cannot  execute  your  law." 
We  take  her  at  her  word,  and  we  proceed  to  do, —  what  ? 
Why,  to  go  back  to  the  armory  of  democratic  weapons  to 
find  whether  democracy  has  any  other  means  of  carry- 
ing out  a  law. 

Now,  mark  you,  what  is  a  city?  It  is  a  body  of  in- 
habitants selected  from  the  rest  of  the  State,  which  as- 
sembles together  and  goes  to  the  legislature  and  says, 
"  Grant  us  a  city  government."  Why  do  they  want  it  ? 
They  say,  "  We  have  large  masses  of  criminal  inhabi- 
tants, large,  massed-up  quantities  of  wealth ;  we  need  a 
more  stringent  machinery  than  a  country  town."  The 
State  says,  "  Yes ;  take  that  city  charter,  and  with  it 
take  certain  conditions  and  privileges  and  rights  peculiar 
to  a  city."  Now,  the  tendency  of  the  last  hundred  years 
has  been  to  what  you  may  call  no  government,  —  that  is, 
toward  making  the  government  light  as  possible ;  filing 
down  all  its  powers,  restricting  all  its  old  despotic  quali- 


THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW.  185 

ties.  That  is  the  tendency  of  our  day.  You  see  it 
everywhere.  We  give  to  wards,  to  towns,  and  to  small  dis- 
tricts unlimited  control  of  their  own  affairs.  In  the  well- 
educated,  sparsely- populated,  comparatively  poor  districts 
of  Massachusetts,  it  succeeds.  Education  and  virtue 
supply  the  place  of  force  and  compulsion.  We  have 
tried  the  same  policy  with  the  city.  We  have  given  to 
it  the  exclusive  execution  of  the  State  laws.  It  was  not 
so  forty  years  ago;  the  city  was  then  a  town  in  the 
county  of  Suffolk  ;  the  State  sent  its  own  sheriff  and 
its  own  deputy  sheriffs,  appointed  by  itself,  not  by 
vote,  to  execute  its  laws.  You  know  the  city  has  two 
codes,  —  its  own  by-laws,  and  also  the  laws  of  the 
State.  Its  own  by-laws  were  always  executed  by  itself. 
Half  a  century  ago,  the  State  laws  were  executed  by 
State  officials. 

We  have  gradually  tended  toward  giving  to  the  city 
the  whole  control  of  the  State  laws  also  ;  and  to-day 
(a  fact,  probably,  of  which  not  one  in  ten  in  this  audience 
is  aware),  the  police  of  Boston  are  engaged  three  quar- 
ters of  their  time,  and  more,  in  the  execution,  not  of  city 
laws,  but  of  State  laws,  of  laws  which,  half  a  century 
ago,  would  have  largely  been  in  the  hands  of  the  sheriff 
and  his  deputies,  appointed  by  the  State.  We  have  gone 
thus  far. 

Now,  like  all  other  grants,  the  State  may  resume  this. 
The  reason  why  she  should  resume  it  is,  because  the 
city  goes  to  the  state-house,  year  by  year,  and  says  : 
"  We  cannot  execute  your  laws."  If  you  incorporate  a 
company  to  build  a  railroad,  after  the  assigned  time, 
if  the  road  is  not  finished,  the  State  resumes  the 
franchise.  The  State  granted  to  the  city  of  Boston  the 
right  to  execute  her  laws  ;  they  are  not  executed,  and 
the  city  proclaims,  by  the  lips  of  her  own  officers,  that 
she  cannot  execute  them.  Therefore,  the  Temperance 


186  THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW. 

men,  who  have  funded  thirty  years  of  work  in  that 
statute,  and  who  claim  of  the  community  this,  that,  at 
least,  the  plan  shall  have  a  trial,  —  as  I  said  at  the 
beginning,  a  trial,  and  nothing  more,  —  ask  that  some 
other  means  be  substituted.  Suppose  this  plan  is  tried 
twenty  years,  and  fails ;  we  will  give  it  up.  Suppose 
you  try  it,  and  it  does  not  work  even  the  miracles  that 
we  hope ;  we  will  surrender  it.  But  long  argument, 
patient  debate,  constant  experiment,  have  lifted  it  into 
the  statute-book  ,  and  now,  certainly,  we  may  rightfully 
claim,  that  the  State  shall  provide  the  machinery  to  try 
it  before  it  is  taken  off  that  statute-book.  Is  there  any- 
thing hard,  anything  unfair,  anything  undemocratic  in 
that  claim  ? 

But  the  city  says,  u  You  cannot  execute  a  law  that 
has  not  public  opinion  behind  it."  Granted,  I  have  no 
wish  to  execute  a  law  that  has  not  public  opinion  behind 
it.  I  have  no  wish  to  execute  a  law  that  has  not  a  pre- 
ponderating public  opinion  behind  it.  But  the  opinion 
of  what  public  ?  Is  it  the  opinion  of  the  City  Hall  ?  Is 
it  the  opinion  of  the  grog-shops  of  Boston  ?  Is  it  the 
opinion  of  Beacon  Street  and  the  clubs  ?  Is  it  the 
opinion  of  Ann  Street  and  North  Street?  Is  it  the 
opinion  of  the  criminals  in  the  dock  ?  No ;  the  law 
rests  on  the  public  opinion  of  the  Commonwealth ;  and 
if  the  liquor  interests  of  Boston  wish  to  appear  before 
that  tribunal,  we  are  ready,  always  ready.  We  wel- 
come them  to  that  great  debate.  All  we  claim  is,  that 
when  they  are  beaten  in  that  court,  they  shall  submit. 
[Applause.]  Is  that  too  much  to  ask  ?  If  they  con- 
quer us,  we  will  submit.  But  we  have  not  been  at  boys' 
play  for  thirty  years.  We  have  converted  the  Common- 
wealth;  it  has  accepted  this  idea,  and  made  it  into  a 
statute  ;  and  if  there  be  a  law  in  Massachusetts,  we  mean 
it  shall  have  a  fair  trial.  [Applause.] 


THE    MAINE    LIQUOR    LAW.  187 

How  is  it  to  be  done  ?  We  have  a  court ;  we  have 
a  legislature  ;  what  we  want  is  an  executive. 

Now,  friends,  before  I  begin  to  speak  on  that  point, 
let  me  say  one  thing.  If  the  metropolitan  police  does 
not  succeed,  we  shall  ask  something  more.  You  need 
not  think  you  will  get  rid  of  us  with  that.  This  is  our 
solemn  conviction  of  duty.  We  have  converted  the 
public  opinion  of  the  Commonwealth ;  we  mean  now  to 
exhaust  Yankee  ingenuity  in  the  invention  of  machinery 
to  execute  the  law;  and  when  Universal  Yankeedom 
confesses  that  it  is  bankrupt,  we  will  give  up,  arid  not 
till  then.  [Applause.]  If  the  metropolitan  police  is 
not  enough,  then  we  will  devise  something  stronger  and 
better,  before  we  sit  down  and  say  that  the  Common- 
wealth of  Massachusetts,  in  General  Court  assembled, 
does  not  rule  this  Commonwealth,  but  that  the  liquor 
dealers  of  Boston  do,  —  for  that  is  the  issue.  The 
question  is,  where  is  the  law  to  be  made  ?  In  the  gilded 
saloons  of  Boston,  or  in  the  state-house  on  yonder  hill  ? 
If  the  million  of  people  who  inhabit  this  Commonwealth 
make  the  law,  this  is  law,  and  Boston  has  no  right  to 
complain — having  abdicated  by  her  own  confession  — 
that  we  go  now  to  the  State,  and  claim  other  and  better 
machinery  to  carry  it  out. 

One  other  point.  You  must  not  expect  that  this  law 
will  convert  the  whole  Commonwealth  in  a  moment. 
Look  at  the  history  of  all  law.  The  time  was,  six  or 
eight  centuries  ago,  when  it  was  a  disputed  point 
whether  a  man  owned  a  separate  lot  of  land.  That 
was  settled  by  public  opinion.  Then  remained  a  second 
;,  question ;  whether,  owning  it  at  his  death,  he  could 
bequeath  it.  Public  opinion  nibbled  at  that  question 
for  a  hundred  years,  and  then  settled  it.  Doubtless, 
when  the  first  statute-book  to  that  extent  was  enrolled 
among  the  parchments,  many  men  relucted ;  but  it 


188  THE   MAINE  LIQUOR   LAW. 

gradually  settled  down  from  the  food  into  the  blood, 
from  the  blood  into  the  bones,  from  the  bones  into  the 
character  of  the  Saxon  race ;  and  to-day,  every  drop  of 
Anglo-Saxon  blood  acknowledges  the  sacredness  of 
property  derived  from  a  hundred  ancestors.  Law,  once 
placed  on  the  statute-book,  educates  the  moral  sense  of 
the  community.  Many  a  man  has  no  higher  level  than 
the  statute-book ;  what  is  legal  he  respects ;  if  he 
trespasses  against  it,  he  feels  himself  a  sinner  ;  what 
is  illegal  he  shrinks  from.  Now,  this  law,  if  you  leave 
it  on  the  statute-book,  is  to  be  the  most  powerful  moral 
suasion  that  was  ever  employed  to  the  conviction  of 
the  universal  conscience  of  the  Commonwealth.  Leave 
it  there  a  century,  let  it  rest  on  the  public  opinion  of  the 
Commonwealth,  and  a  man  will  walk  these  streets  as 
much  ashamed  of  being  descended  from  an  illegal  liquor 
dealer  as  from  an  African  slave-trader.  [Applause.] 

To-day  you  regard  that  statement  as  fanaticism  ;  but 
you  forget,  that  the  masses  of  mankind  may  get  their 
ethics,  in  the  first  instance,  from  the  statute-book,  and 
only  secondly  from  the  Bible  ;  so  that,  if  you  will  only 
let  this  statute  stand,  we  shall  have,  not  merely  public 
opinion,  but  public  virtue,  to  sanction  it,  all  over  the 
Commonwealth. 

But  you  say  to  me,  it  is  a  single  statute.  It  is  not  this 
single  statute  alone.  The  liquor  dealers  of  the  city  of 
Boston  permit  —  that  is  the  proper  word  —  the  execution 
of  the  State  laws  only  so  far  as  they  do  not  interfere  with 
their  interest.  Take  the  Sunday  law.  If  there  be  any- 
thing anchored  in  the  very  superstition  as  well  as  in 
the  religious  principles  of  Massachusetts,  it  is  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  seventh  day  ;  and  yet  that  law,  two  centuries 
old,  —  perhaps  the  most  largely  supported  by  public 
opinion  of  anything  this  side  the  law  of  murder,  —  is 
not  executed  on  this  peninsula,  and  never  will  be  when 


THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW.  189 

it  comes  in  contact  with  the  interests  of  the  liquor  deal- 
ers of  the  streets.  You  talk  to  me  about  this  statute  not 
being  capable  of  execution.  There  is  no  statute  capable 
of  execution  which  comes  athwart  the  selfishness  of  the 
liquor  trade  of  the  city.  Gambling  is  illegal ;  the  brothel  is 
illegal.  They  could  neither  of  them  be  sustained  without 
that  substratum  and  corner-stone,  the  nineteen  hundred 
and  fifty  open  places  for  the  sale  of  intoxicating  drinks ; 
and  do  you  suppose  that  either  of  those  laws,  held  supersti- 
tiously,  conventionally,  religiously  sacred  as  they  are  in 
the  heart  of  every  Massachusetts  man,  is  executed,  or  can 
be  executed  to-day,  when  the  liquor  dealers  of  this  city  to 
a  certain  extent  cover  these  places  with  the  shelter  of  their 
common  interest?  No;  I  am  not  standing  here  to-night 
to  plead  merely  that  the  Maine  Liquor  Law  cannot  be 
executed  ;  I  am  saying  that  ten  millions  of  dollars, 
standing  behind  what  are  in  fact  the  criminal- classes  of 
the  city  (and  I  use  the  word  "criminal"  in  its  broad, 
legal  sense,  —  everything  which  evades  the  laws,  by- 
laws, State  laws,  all  laws),  —  I  say  ten  millions  of  dollars, 
two  thousand  places  for  the  sale  of  drink,  standing  be- 
hind the  criminal  classes,  sustaining  them,  massing  them 
together  by  the  attraction  of  a  common  interest,  always 
have,  always  will,  always  must,  control  the  municipal 
government  of  the  peninsula.  If  you  want  any  law  ex- 
ecuted faithfully,  efficiently,  it  must  be  done  by  the  old 
democratic  authority,  —  the  sovereignty  of  the  State. 

Why  does  the  city  ask  for  peculiar  privileges  for  her 
police  ?  You  meet  a  policeman  in  the  street,  and  he  has 
powers  over  you  a  hundred  fold  greater  than  the  consta- 
ble of  a  country  town.  Why  does  the  city  want  it  ? 
Because  she  acknowledges  that  the  government  wages 
an  unequal  war  with  the  criminal  classes.  -Remember, 
that  in  ten  years,  forty -five  men  out  of  every  hundred  on 
this  peninsula  are  arrested  for  crime.  Forty-five  men 


190  THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW. 

out  of  every  hundred,  —  nearly  one  half  of  the  population 
of  the  peninsula,  in  ten  years  pass  through  the  station- 
house  or  jail.  Now  go  with  me  to  Berkshire,  less  than 
two  men  out  of  a  hundred  are  subject  to  the  same  im- 
prisonment in  that  county.  Do  you  suppose  that  a 
county  like  this  can  rule  itself  with  the  same  facility 
and  earnestness  that  Berkshire  does  ?  Of  course  not. 

The  criminal  classes,  banded  together,  rich,  massed 
up,  are  too  strong  for  democratic  institutions.  I  avow 
my  belief,  derived  from  the  experience  of  San  Francisco, 
New  Orleans,  Cincinnati,  Baltimore,  New  York,  Phila- 
delphia, Boston,  that  it  will  be  found  in  the  next  hun- 
dred years,  that  great  cities  cannot  be  ruled  by  munici- 
pal governments  based  on  democratic  foundations.  The 
votes  of  the  streets  cannot  execute  the  laws.  You  may 
be  astonished,  indignant,  incredulous  ;  but  the  history  of 
all  great  cities  proves  it.  San  Francisco  flung  herself 
out  of  a  government  into  the  hands  of  private  citizens  to 
save  herself  from  anarchy.  Baltimore  did  the  same, 
New  Orleans  did  the  same.  New  York,  wise  by  experi- 
ence, saved  herself  from  the  same  lot  by  going  to  Al- 
bany, and  invoking  the  shelter  of  the  State.  London, 
the  capital  of  the  civilized  world,  in  the  time  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  found  herself  unable  to  deal  with  the  crim- 
inal classes  of  the  city,  and  she  invoked  the  aid  of  Par- 
liament and  the  whole  realm  to  govern  her  territory. 

Boston  has  grown  within  ten  years  so  much  into  the 
resemblance  of  a  crowded  capital  that  the  same  result  is 
-cached  here.  Why,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  we  relieve 
pvery  year  the  poverty  of  fifty  thousand  persons  on  this 
peninsula,  forty  thousand  of  them,  according  to  the  testi- 
mony of  benevolent  societies  and  the  overseers  of  the 
poor,  reduced  to  claim  our  assistance  by  the  habits  of 
intoxication  of  the  head  of  the  family.  Forty  thousand 
persons  kneel  to  your  overseers  of  the  poor  every  year,  in 


THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW.  191 

person  or  by  representatives.  What  makes  them  ?  The 
drinking  saloons  of  the  city.  And  to  us  who  pay  that 
taxation,  the  drinking  saloons  say,  "  You  shall  not  exe- 
cute that  plan  which  the  wisdom  of  the  State  has  devised 
to  prevent  the  evil."  Every  year  twenty-five  thousand 
persons  are  arrested  for  crime ;  nine  tenths  caused  by 
drunkenness,  increasing  every  year.  You  spent  $700,000 
on  this  peninsula,  the  last  twelve  months,  to  educate 
twenty-five  thousand  children,  to  lift  them  to  morals, 
intelligence,  and  virtue.  All  the  time  two  thousand 
drinking  places  are  open,  and  they  drag  down  thirty 
thousand  inhabitants,  —  adults,  the  grown  up,  perfect, 
developed  fruit  of  your  schools,  drag  them  down  to  the 
pit.  You  might  as  well  take  that  8700,000  spent  for 
schools,  and  fling  it  over  the  end  of  Long  Wharf,  when 
with  one  hand  you  build,  and  with  the  other  tear  down 
your  building. 

These  are  the  serious  considerations.  Every  man  who 
knows  his  fellows  well  enough  to  judge  on  this  question, 
knows  that  streets,  planted  with  every  fifteenth  house  a 
place  for  the  public  sale  of  drink,  are  not  safe  streets 
for  a  weak  man  to  walk  in.  Every  man  of  you  knows 
that  the  mother  in  the  country  follows  her  son  into  this 
city  with  trembling  prayers,  not  knowing  whether  the 
virtue  she  has  carefully  watched  and  nurtured  will  stand 
the  temptation  of  Boston  streets,  —  the  great  cancer  of 
the  Commonwealth,  the  source  of  daily  and  hourly  cor- 
ruption ;  and  this  is  the  means  which  the  State  has  de- 
vised to  stop  the  otherwise  immedicable  wound. 

Now,  what  do  we  claim  ?  We  have  the  legislature 
by  argument,  the  court  by  enactments.  We  are  ready 
to  meet  our  opponents  any  time  to  reverse  the  ver- 
dict;  but,  until  it  is  reversed,  we  claim  police  officer 
and  jury  to  carry  out  the  law.  If  that  machinery  suc- 
ceeds, well.  If  it  does  not  succeed,  something  more  shall 


192  THE    MAINE    LIQUOR    LAW. 

be  devised ;  all  the  while  holding  ourselves  open  to  be 
answered,  to  be  disputed,  to  be  gainsaid,  before  that 
great  tribunal,  the  public.  I  wish  I  could  impress  on 
every  man's  mind  to-night,  this  one  thing.  The  Temper- 
ance body  ask  nothing  of  the  liquor  dealer,  nothing  of 
the  city,  nothing  of  the  State,  which  it  has  not  already 
granted  in  essence.  We  are  not  on  trial ;  we  have  gained 
the  battle ;  we  only  ask  to  reap  the  fruits.  If  anybody 
disputes  us,  if  anybody  says  the  Maine  Liquor  Law  is 
not  good,  that  a  license  system  would  be  better,  we  are 
willing  to  go  with  him  into  the  argument ;  but  that  is 
argument.  We  demand  now  that,  having  got  the  statute, 
we  have  a  trial.  I  challenge  the  press  of  the  city,  the 
journals  of  the  liquor  dealers,  to  answer  that  claim,  — 
a  trial  of  the  statute  we  have  richly  earned. 

Some  say  that  this  law  cannot  be  executed.  No  law 
is  perfectly  executed.  Our  jails  and  houses  of  correction 
are  the  evidence  that  no  law  is  thoroughly  executed  ;  but 
what  we  claim  is,  that  with  fair  materials,  this  law  may  be 
as  well  executed  as  any  law  as  young  as  this.  Evidence 
is  ready  at  hand  that  in  the  large  cities  of  Maine,  when 
there  was  as  much  wealth  in  proportion  to  numbers  as 
here,  four  fifths  of  the  drinking  was  killed  by  the  execu- 
tion of  the  Maine  Liquor  Law  ;  and  I  challenge  the  history 
of  all  legislation  to  show  that  any  other  law,  one  year 
old  on  the  statute-book,  was  ever  able  to  kill  four  fifths 
of  the  evil  against  which  it  was  directed.  I  claim  as 
much,  if  not  more,  for  the  Maine  Liquor  Law  as  any  law 
has  ever  achieved.  When  thoroughly  executed,  it  killed 
four  fifths  of  the  sin  which  it  attacked.  You  know  well 
that  the  stranger  in  the  streets  of  New  York,  if  he  is 
disposed  to  indulge  in  the  vices  that  are  hidden,  must 
seek  out  counsel  and  assistance  in  order  to  enable  him- 
self to  indulge.  The  man  who  has  any  purpose  stands 
firm  against  the  temptation,  but  many  a  man  who  has 


THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW.  193 

no  purpose  is  unable  to  sin  from  lack  of  opportunity. 
I  Jut  when  you  open  every  fifteenth  door  in  the  streets,  it 
must  be  a  Hercules  who  is  able  to  stand  against  that 
temptation.  Shut  up  these  tempting  entrances,  and 
seven  out  of  ten  who  enter  the  city  for  the  purpose  of 
getting  a  livelihood  are  saved  from  temptation.  Hide  it 
from  the  investigation  of  the  law,  compel  it  to  retreat 
into  private  cellars,  and  a  man  must  seek  it,  —  seek  it 
with  advice,  seek  it  with  assistance,  — before  he  can  fall 
through  that  sieve  of  deficient  opportunity  into  shameful 
indulgence.  There  will  be  only  a  tenth  or  a  fifth  who 
will  contrive  the  way  to  pass.  Every  man  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  city  indulgence,  in  this  and  simi- 
lar crimes,  knows  well  this  principle.  Hide  the  sale 
of  liquors,  and  we  save  our  sons  and  brothers.  Execute 
this  law,  and  the  streets  of  Boston,  if  not  entirely  clean, 
are  yet  as  safe  as  a  country  town.  The  mother  can  trust 
her  boy,  the  wife  her  husband,  the  brother  his  brother, 
in  these  streets  of  the  capital,  for  education,  for  trade, 
for  pleasure,  without  following  him  with  a  pang. 

I  contend  that  no  man  needs  argument,  no  man  needs 
I  evidence  on  such  a  subject  as  this  ;  and  no  man  has  lived 
/  forty  years  who  has  not  seen  his  pathway  of  life  marked  by 
i    the  graves  of  some  that  he  loved  most,  from  whose  prom- 
ise he  augured  most,  whose  career  was  to  be  the  bright- 
est, who  have  «•£•  fallen  at  his  side,  victims  to  this  sin. 
I  should  not  dare  to  uncover  one  single  roof  in  this  city, 
no   matter  how  guarded  by  wealth,  education,  or    any 
other  fence ;  for  I  should  be  sure  to  /find,  even  in  the 
narrowest    family  circle,   one  vacant   seat    which    this 
gigantic  tempter  had  emptied.    I  have  only  such  a  tale  to 
tell  as  every  one  of  your  hearts  bears  witness  to.     Law- 
yer, merchant,  divine,  —  no  matter  where  you  take  your 
testimony,  every  man's  heart  is  full,  every  man's  mem- 
ory is  the  most  accusing  witness  against  this  great  social 

13 


194  THE   MAINE   LIQUOR   LAW. 

evil.  I  am  no  sentimentalist.  The  keen  arrows  of 
dreadful  experience,  which  every  year  makes  more  in- 
tense  and  more  emphatic,  are  my  inspiration.  I  believe 
in  it  as  a  great  national  security,  but  I  argue  it  as  a  great 
individual  duty  resting  upon  every  man  who  judges  his 
own  past,  or  who  has  any  pity  for  his  neighbor. 


REVIEW    OF    DR.     CROSBY'S    "CALM 
VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 


An  Address  before  the  Association  of  the  Ministers  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  in  Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  January  24,  1881. 
This  is  the  only  address  in  this  volume  which  was  read  from  manu- 
script, and  probably  the  only  one  Mr.  Phillips  ever  delivered  in  that 
manner. 

I  AM  to  offer  you  some  remarks  on  a  lecture  delivered 
here  a  fortnight  ago  by  Chancellor  Crosby.  He  de- 
nounced the  Temperance  movement  as  now  conducted. 
The  address  was  not  very  remarkable  for  novelty,  or 
weight  of  argument,  or  the  correctness  of  its  statements. 
Indeed,  it  was  rather  noticeable  for  the  lack  of  these 
qualities.  And  it  was  so  well  handled  and  so  fully 
answered  in  several  of  our  pulpits  that  I  thought  it 
needed  no  further  notice.  But  you  thought  otherwise, 
and  perhaps  it  does  deserve  it,  considering  the  source 
from  which  it  comes.  And  when  the  health  of  the  chan- 
cellor becomes  the  standing  toast  in  the  grog-shops  of 
our  city,  and  when  the  journal  which  publishes  these 
Monday  lectures  is  obliged  to  print  a  second  and  third 
edition,  day  after  day,  to  supply  that  class  of  customers, 
it  is  evident  that  Temperance  men  have  a  text  on  which 
an  effectual  Temperance  sermon  can  be  preached,  —  one 
that  will  probably  arrest  the  attention  of  just  those  we 
seek  to  reach. 

Dr.  Crosby  laments  the  divisions  among  Temperance 
men,  and  lays  it  down  as  a  principle  that  we  "  cannot 


196   REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 

conscientiously  object  to  the  means  employed  by  others, 
unless  they  contain  an  immorality."  I  beg  leave  to  dis- 
sent from  this.  We  have  had  sixty  years'  experience  in 
Temperance  methods,  and  certainly  may  claim  to  have 
learned  something.  Now,  when  these  new  converts  — 
these  nursling  babies  of  grace  —  mislead  by  their  crude 
suggestions  the  Temperance  public,  obstruct  its  efforts 
and  waste  its  means,  are  we  bound  to  sit  silent  and 
make  no  protest  against  such  waste  and  recklessness  ? 
The  treasury  of  reform  is  not  rich  enough  to  bear  such 
extravagance  on  the  pretence  of  harmony  ;  much  less 
are  we  bound  to  silence  when  a  neighbor's  mistake  seri- 
ously harms  and  hinders  the  movement.  If  Boston 
lived,  as  it  did  in  1806,  with  no  steam  fire-engine,  —  only 
leather  buckets  hanging  in  each  man's  front  entry,  — 
cheerfully  would  I  stand  with  Dr.  Crosby  and  a  hundred 
more  to  pass  buckets  of  water  up  to  the  firemen  on  a 
burning  building.  But  in  1881,  I  should  not  obstruct 
the  engine,  and  crowd  it  out  of  its  place,  merely  that 
Dr.  Crosby  and  I  might  have  a  chance  harmoniously  to 
unite  in  passing  empty  buckets  toward  the  flames.  Life 
is  too  short  for  such  false  courtesies ;  too  short  for  us  to 
postpone  working  on  our  line  until  we  have  educated 
every  new  convert  up  to  our  level.  This  might  do  very 
well  before  the  Flood,  as  Sydney  Smith  suggests,  when 
Methuselah  could  consult  his  friends  for  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  in  relation  to  an  intended  enterprise,  and  even 
then  live  to  see  the  working  of  his  plan,  and  its  success 
or  failure,  for  six  or  seven  centuries  afterward. 

But  life  now  is  limited  to  an  average  of  seventy  years, 
and  practical  men  must  put  their  hands  to  the  plough 
in  the  best  way  they  know,  and  if  children  stand  in 
their  way,  move  them  gently  but  firmly  out  of  the  path. 

I  think  before  Dr.  Crosby  spoke  he  should  have  studied 
the  history  of  the  Temperance  movement.  If  he  were  as 


REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE."   197 

familiar  with  the  literature  of  our  enterprise  as  he  is 
with  that  of  Greece,  he  never  would  have  repeated  criti- 
cisms and  suggestions  that  have  been  answered  over  and 
over  again  during  the  last  fifty  years.  As  I  turn  over 
his  essay,  and  find  how  tediously  familiar  we  all  are  with 
his  objections,  I  am  reminded  of  Johnson's  objection  to 
Goldsmith's  plan  of  travelling  over  Asia  in  order  to 
bring  home  valuable  improvements :  "  Sir,  Goldsmith  is 
so  ignorant  of  his  own  country  that  he  would  bring  home 
a  wheelbarrow  as  a  new  and  valuable  invention." 

The  address  turns  back  on  its  path  frequently,  and  re- 
peats its  chief  criticisms  again  and  again.  If  we  analyze 
it,  I  think  it  may  be  fairly  summed  up  thus :  — 

1.  Dr.  Crosby  objects  to  the  Total-abstinence  theory 
and  movement  that  it  insults  the  example  of  Jesus ;  that 
its  advocates  undermine  and  despise  the  Bible,  while  they 
strain  and  wrench  it  to  serve  their  purpose  ;  and  he  as- 
serts that  the  "Total-abstinence  system  is  contrary  to 
revealed  religion  ; "  and  that  the  Bible,  correctly  inter- 
preted, repudiates  total  abstinence  and  such  a  Temper- 
ance crusade  as  has  existed  here  for  the  last  fifty  years. 

2.  Dr.  Crosby  objects  to  this  movement  as  immoral 
as  well  as  unchristian  ;  and  as  "  doing  unmeasured  harm 
to  the  community."     He  considers  it  as  the  special  and 
direct  cause  of  the  "  growth  of  drunkenness  in  our  land, 
and  of  a  general  demoralization  among  religious  com- 
munities ; "  asserts  that  it  is  exactly  the  kind  of  move- 
ment that  rumsellers  enjoy,  and  that  it  ought  not  to 
succeed,  never  will,  and  never  can. 

3.  The  pledge  is  unmanly,  and  kills  character  and 
self-respect. 

4.  The   assertion   that    moderate    drinking  leads  to 
drunkenness  is  untrue. 

5.  The  total-abstainers  bully  and  intimidate  the  com- 
munity, and  disgust  all  good,  sensible  men. 


198  REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 

6.  That  what  is  needed  to  unite  sensible  men  in  a 
movement  sure  to  succeed,  is  a  license  system  recognizing 
the  distinction  between  moderation  and  excess,  between 
harmless  wines,  arid  beer  and  strong  drink.  Such  a 
system,  "  free  from  taint  of  prejudice,  and  instinct  with 
practical  wisdom,  will  establish  order  and  peace,  and  save 
us  from  a  moral  slough." 

The  looseness  of  these  statements  is  noticeable.  Dr. 
Crosby  says,  "  The  Total-abstinence  system  is  contrary  to 
revealed  religion." 

What  is  the  "  Total-abstinence  system  "  ?  It  is  ab- 
staining from  intoxicating  drink  ourselves,  and  agreeing 
with  others  to  do  so.  How  is  this  contrary  to  revealed 
religion  ?  Can  any  one  cite  a  text  in  the  Bible  or  a 
principle  laid  down  there  which  forbids  it  ?  Of  course 
not;  no  one  pretends  that  he  can.  But  Dr.  Crosby's  ar- 
gument is,  that  Jesus  drank  intoxicating  wine  and 
allowed  it  to  others.  There  is  no  proof  that  he  ever  did 
drink  intoxicating  wine.  But  let  that  pass,  and  sup- 
pose, for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  he  did.  What 
then  ?  To  do  what  Jesus  never  did,  or  to  refuse  to  do 
what  he  did,  are  such  acts  necessarily  "  contrary  to 
revealed  religion  "  ?  Let  us  see. 

Jesus  rode  upon  an  "  ass  and  a  colt,  the  foal  of  an 
ass."  We  find  it  convenient  to  use  railways.  Are  they 
"  contrary  to  revealed  religion"  ?  Jesus  never  married, 
neither  did  most  of  his  apostles.  Is  marriage,  therefore, 
"  contrary  to  revealed  religion  "  ?  Jesus  allowed  a  hus- 
band to  put  away  his  wife  if  she  had  committed  adultery, 
he  himself  being  judge  and  executioner.  We  forbid  him 
to  do  it,  and  make  him  submit  to  jury  trial  and  a  judge's 
decision.  Are  such  divorce  laws,  therefore,  "  contrary 
to  revealed  religion  "  ?  Jesus  said  to  the  person  guilty 
of  adultery  :  "  Go  and  sin  no  more."  We  send  such 
sinners  to  the  State  prison.  Are  our  laws  punishing 


REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE."   199 

adultery,  therefore,  "contrary  to  revealed  religion"? 
There  were  no  women  at  the  Last  Supper.  We  admit 
themjx)  it.  Is  this  "contrary  to  revealed  religion"? 
We  see,  therefore,  that  Christians  may,  in  altered  cir- 
cumstances, do  some  things  Jesus  never  actually  did, 
and  that  their  so  doing  does  not  necessarily  contravene 
his  example ;  nor,  unless  it  violates  the  principles  he 
taught,  does  it  tend  to  undermine  Christianity. 

But  the  learned  lecturer  will  perhaps  urge :  "  I  did 
not  mean  exactly  what  I  said.  I  meant  to  point  out  that 
the  means  you  use  —  methods  with  which  you  urge  and 
support  the  Total-abstinence  theory — are  contrary  to  re- 
vealed religion.  You  strain  and  pervert  the  Bible  to  get 
the  example  of  Jesus  on  your  side,  and  so  undermine 
the  authority  of  the  Scriptures." 

It  would  have  been  better  if  Dr.  Crosby  had  originally 
said  exactly  what  he  meant,  and  on  so  grave  a  subject 
we  had  a  right  to  claim  that  a  trained  and  scholarly 
man  should  do  so.  But,  waiving  that,  let  us  allow  him, 
as  the  courts  do,  to  amend  his  declaration. 

The  Total-abstinence  system  is  "  contrary  to  revealed 
religion,"  because  we  strain  and  distort  the  Scriptures 
and  wrest  them  to  serve  our  purpose;  and  the  chief  in- 
stance upon  which  the  Doctor  mainly  dwells  is  our  as- 
sertion that  wherever  drinking  wine  is  referred  to  in 
the  Bible  with  approbation,  unfermented  wine  is  meant. 
Upon  this  claim  the  Doctor  pours  out  his  hottest  indig- 
nation, indulging  m  a  wealth  of  abusive  epithets,  and 
returning  to  it  again  and  again,  ringing  changes  on  it, 
and  turning  it  like  a  specially  sweet  morsel  under  his 
tongue.  Indeed,  this  may  be  considered  the  chief  thing 
he  came  to  Boston  to  say. 

Now,  there  is  a  class  of  Biblical  scholars  and  inter- 
preters who  do  assert  that  wherever  wine  is  referred  to 
in  the  Bible  with  approbation,  it  is  unfermented  wine. 


200  REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OP  TEMPERANCE." 

Of  this  class  of  men,  Dr.  Crosby  says  "  their  learned 
ignorance  is  splendid  ;  "  they  are  "  inventors  of  a  theory 
of  magnificent  daring  ;  "  they  "  use  false  texts  "  and  "de- 
ceptive arguments  ;  "  "  deal  dishonestly  with  the  Scrip- 
tures ; "  "  beg  the  question  and  build  on  air ; "  their 
theory  is  a  "  fable,"  born  of  "  falsehoods,"  supported  by 
"  Scripture  twisting  and  wriggling  ;  "  their  arguments 
are  "  cobwebs,"  and  their  zeal  outstrips  their  judgment, 
and  they  plan  to  "  undermine  the  Bible." 

This  is  a  fearful  indictment !  Who  are  these  daring, 
ridiculous,  and  illogical  sinners  ?  As  I  call  them  up  in 
my  memory,  the  first  one  who  comes  to  me  is  Moses 
Stuart,  of  Andover,  whose  lifelong  study  of  the  Bible 
and  profound  critical  knowledge  of  both  its  languages 
place  him  easily  at  the  head  of  all  American  commenta- 
tors. His  well-balanced  mind,  conservative  to  a  fault  on 
many  points,  clears  him  from  any  suspicion  of  being 
misled  by  enthusiasm  or  warping  his  opinions  to  suit 
novel  theories.  "  Moses  Stuart's  Scripture  View  of  the 
Wine  Question  "  was  the  ablest  contribution,  thirty  years 
ago,  to  this  claim  about  unfermented  wine,  and  it  still 
holds  its  place,  unanswered  and  unanswerable.  By  his 
side  stands  Dr.  Nott,  tlje  head  of  Union  College,  with 
the  snows  of  ninety  winters  on  his  brow.  Around  them 
gather  scores  of  scholars  and  divines  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic.  In  our  day  Tayler  Lewis  gives  to  the  Ameri- 
can public,  with  his  scholarly  indorsement,  the  exhaus- 
tive commentary  by  Dr.  Lees  on  every  text  in  the  Bible 
which  speaks  of  wine, —  a  work  of  sound  learning,  the 
widest  research,  and  fairest  argument. 

The  ripe  scholarship,  long  study  of  the  Bible,  and 
critical  ability  of  these  men  entitle  them  to  be  consid- 
ered experts  on  this  question.  In  a  matter  of  Scripture 
interpretation  it  would  be  empty  compliment  to  say  that 
Dr.  Crosby  is  worthy  to  loose  the  latchet  of  their 


UK  VIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE."  201 

shoes.  You  would  think  me  using  only  sarcasm  if  I 
said  so. 

Now,  imagine  Moses  Stuart,  with  his  "  learned  igno- 
rance," "  using  false  texts,"  "  dealing  dishonestly  with  the 
Scriptures,"  "  begging  a  question  and  using  cobwebs  for 
arguments,"  "  wriggling  and  twisting  the  Bible  ; "  at  the 
ripe  age  of  sixty  years  his  boyish  "  zeal  outstripping  his 
judgment,"  —imagine  him,  with  his  infidel  pickaxe, 
zealously  digging  away  up  there  on  Andover  Hill  to 
"  undermine  the  Bible  "  !  Of  course  all  Andover  will 
at  once  recognize  the  fidelity  of  the  portrait,  and  cordially 
thank  the  New  York  Greek  professor  for  informing 
them  of  his  discovery  of  this  Stuart  conspiracy  with 
Dr.  Nott  to  bring  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  into 
contempt. 

One  thing  Dr.  Crosby  wishes  to  be  distinctly  under- 
stood :  he  does  not  charge  such  men  as  Stuart  with 
meaning  to  lie.  "Their  main  arguments  are  falsehoods. 
They  take  up  these  weapons  Vithout  sufficiently  exam- 
ining them.  They  see  they  can  be  made  effective,  but 
do  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  they  are  legitimate." 
Now,  this  is  very  kind  in  our  New  York  professor.  We 
had  never  discovered  the  superficial  character  of  Stuart's 
scholarship,  which  left  him^pen  to  such  mistakes,  or  his 
mischievous  haste  and  culpable  carelessness  in  logical 
methods,  and  it  is  very  generous  in  this  new  Daniel  to 
assure  us  that,  in  spite  of  these  faults,  he  "  can  [with 
effort,  of  course,  and  some  struggle]  believe  in  the  pur- 
ity of  motive  "  of  such  men,  even  when  they  "  trample 
on  reason  and  Scripture  in  blind  rush." 

Now,  the  truth  is,  the  only  "  castle  built  on  air  "  in 
this  matter  is  the  baseless  idea  that  the  Temperance 
movement  uses  dishonest  arguments  or  wrests  the  Scrip- 
ture, because  it  maintains  that  where  the  drinking  of 
wine  as  an  article  of  diet  is  mentioned  in  the  Bible  with 


approbation,  unfermented  wine  is  meant.  The  fact  is, 
there  are  scholars  of  repute  on  both  sides  of  the  ques- 
tion ;  but  we  do  not  claim  too  much  when  we  say  that 
the  weight  of  scholarly  authority  is  on  our  side,  and  not 
on  that  of  the  Doctor. 

But  suppose  the  weight  on  each  side  were  equal,  what 
then  ?  One  theory  makes  the  Bible  contradict  itself, 
puts  it  below  the  sacred  books  of  many  other  nations  in 
the  strictness  of  its  morality,  and  sets  it  as  an  obstacle 
to  the  highest  civilization. 

The  other  reconciles  all  its  teachings  one  with  another, 
lifts  it  to  the  level  of  the  highest  moral  idea,  and  makes 
it  the  inspirer  and  the  guide  in  all  noble  efforts  to  ele- 
vate the  race.  Which  theory  ought  the  believer  in  the 
Bible  to  prefer,  if  both  were  equally  well  supported  ? 
Are  those  who  degrade  the  Bible  below  other  scriptures 
entitled  to  charge  us  with  "  undermining "  it  ?  There 
are  other  claims  besides  that  of  unfermented  wine  which 
are  "magnificent  in  their  daring"  and,  let  me  add,  in 
their  insolence. 

Some  of  the  Doctor's  young  hearers  might  have  been 
surprised  to  see  a  divine  flinging  the  Bible  in  the  way  of 
the  Temperance  movement.  But  we  older  ones  and  Abo- 
litionists are  used  to  such  attempts.  Forty-five  years 
ago  the  Princeton  Review,  representing  the  Presbyte- 
rian Church,  denounced  the  Antislavery  movement  — 
at  a  time  when  Garrison  stood  surrounded  by  divines 
and  church-members  without  number  —  as  infidel  and 
"  contrary  to  revealed  religion."  Its  argument  was  the 
exact  counterpart  of  Dr.  Crosby's  against  our  Temperance 
enterprise.  In  vain  we  showed  that  the  word  "  slave  "  in 
the  New  Testament  did  not  necessarily  or  probably  mean 
a  chattel  slave,  and  in  vain  did  Weld's  "  Bible  Argument" 
—  which  was  never  answered  —  prove  the  same  to  be 
true  of  the  Old  Testament.  Still,  we  were  denounced  as 


REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE."   203 

"  twisting  and  wresting  and  straining  the  Scriptures,  and 
undermining  the  Bible."  This  Crosby  Bible  was  flung 
in  Garrison's  face  for  thirty  years.  But  since  his  great 
hand  wrote  Righteousness  on  the  flag,  and  sent  it  down 
to  the  Gulf,  and  since  we  boast  that  no  slave  treads  our 
soil, —  since  then  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  church- 
members  out  of  every  thousand  will  call  you  a  libeller 
and  suspect  you  of  infidelity  if  you  say  the  Bible  any- 
where or  in  any  degree  upholds  slavery ;  and  I  see  your 
lecturer  last  week  closed  his  eloquent  and  able  address 
by  triumphantly  claiming  that  the  Gospel  abolished 
slavery, —  which  is  true,  only  he  should  have  stated  that 
it  was  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  not  the  gospel  of 
the  Church  of  that  day. 

Hence,  I  am  not  impatient  nor  distrustful.  I  rest 
quiet  in  serene  assurance  that  by  and  by,  when  our  Tem- 
perance cause  is  a  little  stronger,  men  will  blush  to 
think  they  ever  belittled  and  dishonored  the  Bible  by 
such  claims  and  arguments  as  these.  At  that  time 
ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  Christians  will  look 
askance  upon  you,  and  suspect  your  Orthodoxy,  unless 
you  believe  Jesus  never  drank  any  fermented  wine,  and 
that  the  Bible's  precepts  touching  wine-drinking  can 
onlv  be  reconciled  with  each  other,  or  with  its  claim  as  a 
revealed  religion,  by  recognizing  the  distinction  between 
fermented  and  unfermented  wines.  In  my  active  life  of 
fifty  years  I  have  seen  more  men  made  infidels  by  these 
attempts  to  prove  the  Bible  an  upholder  of  slavery,  than 
I  ever  saw  misled  by  the  followers  of  Paine  ;  and  I  think 
this  sad  exhibition  of  New  York  partisanship  will  have 
the  same  result.  The  misled  men  to  whom  I  refer,  were 
not  ignorant,  careless-minded,  or  unprincipled,  but  men 
of  conscientious  earnestness  of  purpose,  good  culture,  and 
blameless  lives. 

It  is,  indeed,  mournful  to  look  back  and  notice  how 


204  REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 

uniformly  narrow-minded  men,  hide-bound  in  the  bark 
of  tradition,  conventionalism,  and  prejudice,  have  thrown 
the  Bible  in  the  way  of  every  forward  step  the  race  has 
ever  made.  When  the  Reformation  claimed  that  every 
Christian  man  was  his  own  priest  and  entitled  to  read 
the  Bible  for  himself,  the  cry  was :  "  You  are  resisting 
and  undermining  the  Bible."  Even  before  that,  the  most 
advanced  arid  liberal  churchmen  denounced  their  own 
(unrecognized,  but  true)  spiritual  brothers  —  the  democ- 
racy of  their  day  in  Holland  and  elsewhere  —  as  infidels 
and  contemners  of  the  Scriptures. 

When  the  English  Puritan  saw  dimly  a  republican 
equality  of  rights,  Sir  Robert  Filmer  and  the  High- 
Churchmen  tried  to  frighten  him  with  the  scarecrow 
of  their  Bible.  The  chief  Apostle  says,  "  Honor  the 
king  ! "  and  this  fellow  leaves  us  no  king  to  honor ! 
But  even  Dr.  Crosby  would,  in  spite  of  Saint  Peter, 
hardly  acknowledge  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
to  be  "  contrary  to  revealed  religion." 

One  of  the  strongest  proofs  that  the  Bibb  is  really 
a  divine  book  is,  that  it  has  outlived  even  the  foolish 
praises  and  misrepresentations  of  its  narrow  and  bigoted 
friends. 

When  Antislavery  lecturers  first  entered  Ohio,  some 
forty  years  ago,  they  carried  the  Bible  before  them  as 
their  sanction  for  the  movement.  Certain  doctors  of 
divinity,  horror-struck  at  this  profanation,  proposed  to 
form  a  society  whose  object  should  be  to  prove  that  the 
Bible  sanctioned  slavery.  Ben  Wade  was  then  consid- 
ered somewhat  of  an  infidel ;  but  on  the  principle  of 
the  forlorn  sailor  who  puts  up  with  any  port  in  a  storm, 
these  divines  sought  out  Wade,  asking  him  to  be  presi- 
dent of  the  proposed  society.  Wade  received  them  most 
courteously.  "  Certainly,"  said  he,  "  gentlemen,  I  will 
serve  you  gladly,  and  do  my  best  to  make  this  thing 


;  CALM    VIEW    OF   TEMPERANCE."     205 

a  success.  But,  you  know,  when  we  've  proved  that  the 
Bible  supports  and  demands  slavery  as  an  institution, 
folks  will  ask  you  to  show  them  what  is  the  worth  of 
such  a  Bible,  here  and  now.  And  in  that  matter  I  can- 
not be  of  any  help  to  you,  gentlemen,  at  all." 

But  some  adherent  of  Dr.  Crosby  may  say :  Still,  the 
New  Testament  does  not  anywhere  specifically  and  in 
so  many  words  describe  a  system  of  moral  observance 
like  Teetotalism.  Possibly  not;  and  hence  the  Doctor 
claims  that  this  suiting  Christianity  to  the  needs  of  the 
age  is  disguised  infidelity. 

But  look  at  it  a  moment.  The  New  Testament  is 
a  small  book,  and  may  be.  read  in  an  hour.  It  is  not  a 
code  of  laws,  but  the  example  of  a  life  and  a  suggestion 
of  principles.  It  would  be  idle  to  suppose  that  it  could 
describe  in  detail,  specifically  meet  every  possible  ques- 
tion, and  solve  every  difficulty  that  the  changing  and 
broadening  life  of  two  or  three  thousand  years  might 
bring  forth.  The  progressive  spirit  of  each  age  has 
found  in  it  just  the  inspiration  and  help  it  sought. 
But  when  timid,  narrow,  and  short-sighted  men  claimed 
such  exclusive  ownership  in  it  that  they  refused  to 
their  growing  fellows  the  use  of  its  broad,  under- 
lying principles,  and  thus  demanded  to  have  new  wine 
put  into  old  bottles,  of  course  the  bottles  burst  and 
their  narrow,  surface  Bible  became  discredited  ;  but  the 
real  Bible  soared  upward,  and  led  the  world  onward 
still,  as  the  soul  rises  to  broader  and  higher  life  when 
the  burden  of  a  narrow  and  mortal  body  falls  away. 

This  is  that  kind  of  literal  and  starved  ignorance  which 
lays  its  unworthy  hand  on  the  Scriptures,  and  tells  us 
that,  because  Solomon  said,  u  He  that  spareth  the  rod 
spoileth  the  child,"  he  meant  every  child  must  be  mer- 
cilessly whipped ;  thus  dragging  down  the  wisest  of  men 
to  the  level  of  their  own  narrow  and  brutal  nature, 


206  REVIEW  OP  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 

ignorant  that  the  poet-king,  putting  the  concrete  for  the 
principle  involved,  meant  only  to  emphasize  the  truth 
that  the  training  of  a  child  must  include  subjection,  — 
by  what  method  obtained  each  case  and  each  child's 
nature  must  decide.  And  thus  many  a  brute  and  igno- 
ramus has  complacently  fathered  his  absurd  blindness 
and  passionate  temper  on  Solomon  and  the  Bible. 

Had  not  the  lecturer  of  last  week,  Dr.  Crooks,  so 
ably  and  eloquently  pointed  out  this  characteristic  of 
Christianity,  its  opening  to  the  moral  and  spiritual 
need  of  each  age,  its  ready  and  complete  adaptation  of 
itself  to  the  most  unforeseen  and  immense  changes  in  the 
moral  life  of  succeeding  ages,  —  one  of  the  proofs  of  its 
divine  origin,  — furnishing  the  principles  needed  for  each 
larger  development  of  civilization,  and  giving  its  sanction 
to  the  new  methods  which  keener  temptations  and  more 
threatening  dangers  demanded,  I  might  have  troubled 
you  with  something  on  this  point.  You  will  allow  me 
to  quote  what  will  show  you  that  even  the  old  divines, 
and  those  whose  Orthodoxy  will  not  be  suspected,  have 
again  and  again  affirmed  that  a  moral  agency's  being 
new  was  no  evidence  at  all  that  Christianity  did  not 
include  and  intend  it.  Robinson,  in  "Address  to  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers,"  says  :  — 

"  If  God  reveal  aivything  to  you  b}T  an}*  other  instrument 
of  his,  be  as  ready  to  receive  it  as  ever  you  were  to  receive 
any  truth  by  my  ministry  ;  for  I  am  verily  persuaded  —  I  am 
very  confident  —  the  Lord  hath  more  truth  yet  to  break  forth 
out  of  his  Holy  Word." 

The  Hon.  Robert  Boyle  (1680)  says  :  — 

u  As  the  Bible  was  not  written  for  an}r  one  particular  time 
or  people,  ...  so  there  are  many  passages  very  useful 
which  will  not  be  found  so  these  many  ages  ;  being  possibly 


REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OP  TEMPERANCE/'    207 

reserved  b}'  the  Prophetic  Spirit  that  indited  them  ...  to 
quell  some  foreseen  heresy,  ...  or  resolve  some  yet  un- 
formed doubts,  or  confound  some  error  that  hath  not  yet 
a  name." 

Bishop  Butler,  in  his  "  Analogy  "  (1737)  says  :  — 

44  Nor  is  it  at  all  incredible  that  a  Book  which  has  been  so 
long  in  the  possession  of  mankind,  should  yet  contain  many 
truths  as  yet  undiscovered.  For  all  the  same  phenomena 
and  the  same  faculties  of  investigation  from  which  such  great 
discoveries  in  natural  knowledge  have  been  made  in  the  pres- 
ent and  last  age,  were  equally  in  the  possession  of  mankind 
several  thousand  years  before.  And  possibly  it  might  be 
intended  that  events,  as  the}'  come  to  pass,  should  open  and 
ascertain  the  meaning  of  several  parts  of  Scripture." 

The  Interpreter  (1862)  says  :  — 

44  A  daj'  is  coming  when  Scripture,  long  darkened  b}*  tra- 
ditional teaching,  too  frequently  treated  as  an  exhaustw^ 
mine,  will  at  length  be  recognized  in  its  true  character, 
as  a  field  rich  in  unexplored  wealth,  and  consequently  be 
searched  afresh  for  its  hidden  treasures." 

Vinet,  in  his  "  Lectures,"  says  :  — 

44  Even  now,  after  eighteen  centuries  of  Christianity,  we 
may  be  involved  in  some  tremendous  error  of  which  the 
Christianity  of  the  future  will  make  us  ashamed." 

Dean  Stanley  says  :  — 

44  Each  age  of  the  Church  has,  as  it  were,  turned  over  a 
new  leaf  in  the  Bible,  and  found  a  response  to  its  own  wants. 
We  have  a  leaf  still  to  turn,  —  a  leaf  not  the  less  new  because 
it  is  so  simple." 

Dr.  Crosby  passes  to  the  great  weapon  of  the  Temper- 
ance movement,  —  the  pledge.  This  he  calls  4i  unmanly," 


208   REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 

"a  strait-jacket;"  says  it  kills  self-respect  and  under- 
mines all  character. 

Hannah  More  said  :  "  We  cannot  expect  perfection 
in  any  one;  but  we  may  demand  consistency  of  every 
one." 

It  does  not  tend  to  show  the  sincerity  of  these  critics 
of  our  cause  when  we  find  them  objecting  in  us  to  what 
they  themselves  uniformly  practise  on  all  other  occasions. 
If  we  continue  to  believe  in  their  sincerity,  it  can  only 
be  at  the  expense  of  their  intelligence.  Dr.  Crosby  is, 
undoubtedly,  a  member  of  a  church.  Does  he  mean  to 
say  that  when  his  church  demanded  his  signature  to  its 
creed  and  his  pledge  to  obey  its  discipline,  it  asked  what 
it  was  "  unmanly  "  in  him  to  grant,  and  what  destroys 
an  individual's  character;  that  his  submission  to  this  is 
"  foregoing  his  reasoning,"  "  sinking  back  to  his  non- 
age," etc  ?  Of  course  he  assents  to  none  of  these  things. 
He  only  objects  to  a  Temperance  pledge,  not  to  a  church 
pledge. 

I  The  husband  pledges  himself  to  his  wife,  and  she  to 
him,  for  life.  Is  the  marriage  ceremony,  then,  a  curse, 
a  hindrance  to  virtue  and  progress  ? 

I  have  known  men  who,  borrowing  money,  refused  to 
sign  any  promissory  note.  They  thought  it  unmanly 
and  evidence  that  I  distrusted  them.  Does  Dr.  Crosby 
think  the  world  should  change  its  customs  and  immedi- 
ately adopt  that  plan  ? 

Society  rests  in  all  its  transactions  on  the  idea  that  a 
solemn  promise,  pledge,  assertion,  strengthens  and  as- 
sures the  act.  It  recognizes  this  principle  of  human 
nature.  The  witness  on  the  staffd  gives  solemn  promise 
to  tell  the  truth;  the  officer  about  to  assume  place  for 
one  year  or  ten,  or  for  life,  pledges  his  word  and  oath ; 
the  grantor  in  a  deed  binds  himself  for  all  time  by 
record  ;  churches,  societies,  universities,  accept  funds  on 


REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE."   209 

pledge  to  appropriate  them  to  certain  purposes  and  to 
no  other,  —  these  and  a  score  more  of  instances  can  be 
cited.  In  any  final  analysis  all  these  rest  on  the  same 
principle  as  the  Temperance  pledge.  No  man  ever  de- 
nounced them  as  unmanly.  I  sent  this  month  a  legacy 
to  a  literary  institution,  on  certain  conditions,  and  re- 
ceived in  return  its  pledge  that  the  money  should  ever 
he  sacredly  used  as  directed.  The  Doctor's  principle 
would  unsettle  society,  and  if  one  proposed  to  apply  it 
to  any  cause  but  Temperance,  practical  men  would 
quietly  put  him  aside  as  out  of  his  head. 

"These .  cobweb  theorlespborn  of  isolated  cloister  life,1 
do  not  bear  exposure  to  the  midday  sun  or  the  rude 
winds  of  practical  life.  This  is  not  a  matter  of  theory. 
It  must  be  tested  and  settled  by  experience  and  results. 
Thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  attest  the  value  of  the 
pledge.  It  never  degraded  ;  it  only  lifted  them  to  a 
higher  life.  "  Unmanly"?  No.  It  made  men  of  the*n. 
We  who  never  lost  our  clear  eyesight  or  level  balance 
over  books,  but  who  stand  mixed  up  and  jostled  in  daily 
life,  hardly  deem  any  man's  sentimental  and  fastidious 
criticism  of  the  pledge  worth  answering.  Every  active 
worker  in  the  Temperance  cause  can  recall  hundreds  of 
instances  where  it  has  been  a  man's  salvation. 

In  a  railway-car  once,  a  man  about  sixty  years  old 
came  to  sit  beside  me.  He  had  heard  me  lecture  the 
evening  before  on  Temperance.  "  I  am  master  of  a 
ship,"  said  he,  "  sailing  out  of  New  York,  and  have  just 
returned  from  my  fiftieth  voyage  across  the  Atlantic. 
About  thirty  years  ago  I  was  a  sot ;  shipped,  while  dead- 
drunk,  as  one  of  a  crew,  and  was  carried  on  board  like 
a  log.  When  1  came  to,  the  captain  sent  for  me.  He 
asked  me:  '  Do  you  remember  your  mother?'  I  told 
him  she  died  before  I  could  remember  anything.  '  Well,' 
said  he,  '  I  am  a  Vermont  man.  When  I  was  young  I 

H 


210  REVIEW  OP  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 

was  crazy  to  go  to  sea.  At  last  my  mother  consented 
I  should  seek  my  fortune  in  New  York.'  He  told 
how  she  stood  on  one  side  the  garden-gate  and  he  on 
the  other,  when,  with  his  bundle  on  his  arm,  he  was 
ready  to  walk  to  the  next  town.  She  said  to  him  :  '  My 
hoy,  I  don't  know  anything  about  towns,  and  I  never 
saw  the  sea ;  but  they  tell  me  those  great  towns  are 
sinks  of  wickedness,  arid  make  thousands  of  drunkards. 
Now,  promise  me  you  '11  never  drink  a  drop  of  liquor.' 
He  said,  '  I  laid  my  hand  in  hers  and  promised,  as  I 
looked  into  her  eyes  for  the  last  time.  She  died  soon 
after.  I  've  been  on  every  sea,  seen  the  worst  kinds  of 
life  and  men.  They  laughed  at  me  as  a  milksop,  and 
wanted  to  know  if  I  was  a  coward ;  but  when  they 
offered  me  liquor,  I  saw  my  mother  across  the  gate,  and 
I  never  drank  a  drop.  It  has  been  my  sheet-anchor.  .  I 
owe  all  to  that.  Would  you  like  to  take  that  pledge  ? ' 
said  he." 

My  companion  took  it,  and  he  added :  "It  has  saved 
me.  I  have  a  fine  ship,  wife  and  children  at  home,  and 
I  have  helped  others." 

How  far  that  little  candle  threw  its  beams  !  That 
anxious  mother  on  a  Vermont  hillside  saved  two  men 
to  virtue  and  usefulness ;  how  many  more,  He  who  sees 
all  can  alone  tell. 

But  our  agitation  of  the  Drink  Question  is  "  bulldoz- 
ing" and  "intimidation."  This  is  only  an  unmanly 
whine.  What  is  the  pulpit  ?  Does  it  not  take  admitted 
truths  and  press  them  home  on  conscience  ?  Or  does  it 
not  seek  to  prove  principles  the  listener  does  not  admit, 
and  then  urge  him  to  their  practice  ?  Does  it  not  criti- 
cise and  affirm  and  denounce,  seeking  to  waken  the  in- 
different, convince  the  doubting,  arid  claim  consistent 
action  of  all  ?  Does  it  wait  until  the  sinner  acknowledges 
its  principles  before  it  denounces  his  action  as  a  sin  ? 


REVIEW  OP  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE."   211 

By  no  means.  Is  church  discipline  visited  only  on  those 
who  see  and  confess  their  sins  ?  Is  it  not  used  to  rouse 
them  to  a  sense  of  the  principle  they  will  not  acknowl- 
edge, and  hold  them  up  to  the  rebuke  and  take  from 
them  the  respect  of  their  fellows  ?  If  our  Temperance 
agitation  is  "  intimidation,"  then  nine  tenths  of  the  land's 
pulpits  are  bulldozers,  and  the  other  tenth  is  useless. 
What  does  the  Bible  say  of  those  who  prophesy  smooth 
things,  and  whose  order  was  Nathan  obeying  when  he 
said,  "  Thou  art  the  man  "  ? 

I  have  known  even  a  Greek  professor,  when  speaking 
in  downright  earnest,  fling  about  the  keenest  and  rough- 
est words  in  the  dictionary  in  the  most  reckless  and 
biting  manner ; 1  yet  I  never  dreamed  of  charging  him 
with  seeking  to  intimidate  his  opponents. 

Dr.  Crosby  says  it  is  false,  our  constant  assertion  that 
moderate  drinking  makes  drunkards.  Will  he  please 
tell  us  where,  then,  the  drunkards  come  from?  Cer- 

1  As  illustrating  Dr.  Crosby's  "calmness,"  the  Chicago  Advance  says  : 
"A  collection  of  the  dynamic  complimentary  phrases  applied  by  this 
'calm'  lecturer  to  the  main  body  of  Temperance  people  of  America 
would  make  a  curious  paragraph.  Here  are  some  specimens:  'Mere 
obstinacy  of  opinion  and  personal  pride  ; '  '  what  a  fearful  prostitution  of 
a  noble  word  is  seen  in  the  use  of  the  word  "  temperance"  to-day!'  «a 
false  flag'  seized  by  'radical  and  intemperate  souls'  which  'will  disgust 
and  alienate  true  and  enlightened  souls;'  'these  infatuated  defenders  of 
the  Total-abstinence  principle;'  'these  great  untruths  that  are  flaunted 
on  its  banners  will  disgust  most  men  that  have  brains  and  use  them;' 
'its  spirit  of  intimidation'  and  '  bulldozing,'  the  'invariable  accompani- 
ment of  it  during  its  forty  years'  curriculum  ;'  'overbearing  and  tyran- 
nical,' 'using  a  violence  of  language  that  can  admit  of  no  excuse;' 
whose  '  principal  agencies  have  been  falsehood  and  intimidation  ;'  whose 
'  principles  are  at  war  with  proper  manliness  or  self  respect ;'  'upon  the 
Total-abstinence  system  I  charge  the  growth  of  drunkenness  in  our  land 
and  a  general  demoralization  among  religious  communities ; '  '  moral 
jugglery,'  '  a  blunder  that  has  the  proportions  of  a  crime ; '  of  the  pledge, 
a  '  most  pernicious  instrument  for  debauching  the  conscience,'  '  always 
an  injury  and  never  a  help;'  the  wild  ' lashl-bazouks  of  controversy' 
etc.,  etc." 


212  REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 

tainly  teetotalers  do  not  recruit  these  swelling  ranks. 
Will  he  please  account  for  the  million-times-repeated 
story  of  the  broken-hearted  and  despairing  sot,  and  of 
the  reformed  man,  that  "  moderate  drinking  lulled  them 
to  a  false  security  until  the  chain  was  too  strong  for 
them  to  break  "  ?  Will  he  please  explain  that  confes- 
sion forced  from  old  Sam  Johnson,  and  repeated  hun- 
dreds of  times  since  by  men  of  seemingly  strong  resolve : 
"  I  can  abstain  ;  I  can't  be  moderate  "  ? 

Do  not  the  Bible,  the  writers  of  fiction,  the  master 
dramatists  of  ancient  and  modern  times;  the  philoso- 
ph  r,  the  moralist,  the  man  of  affairs,  —  do  not  all  these 
bear  witness  how  insidiously  the  habits  of  sensual  in- 
dulgence creep  on  their  victim,  until  he  wakes  to  find 
himself  in  chains  of  iron,  hisvery  will  destroyed  ? 

When  Milton  says,  "  I  cannot  praise  a  fugitive  and 
cloistered  virtue,  unexercised  and  unbreathed,  that  never 
sallies  out  and  sees  her  adversary,"  Dr.  Crosby,  you  sup- 
pose, interprets  it  as  meaning  that  boys  should  frequent 
gambling-hells  and  such  resorts,  in  order  to  prove  their 
strength  of  resistance.  But  no ;  he  does  not  mean  any 
such  tiling.  He  only  thinks  they  should  face  the  drink 
temptation ;  none  other.  When  you  hear  that  the  New 
York  Central  Railway  prohibits  the  sale  of  flash  litera- 
ture in  its  cars,  perhaps  you  expect  to  hear  Dr.  Crosby 
denounce  that  corporation  as  emasculating  the  virtues  of 
their  travellers  and  making  them  unmanly.  Not  at  all. 
He  approves  it.  It  is  only  drink  temptations  that  he 
considers  good  training  for  heroic  men. 

You  might  suppose  that  Dr.  Crosby  would  recom- 
mend to  colleges  to  substitute,  in  their  study  of  the 
literature  of  fiction,  the  works  of  Eugene  Sue,  Dumas, 
and  Balzac,  in  the  place  of  George  Eliot,  Walter  Scott, 
and  Jane  Austen,  since  these  last  would  afford  no  proof 
of  a  lad's  ability  to  withstand  the  harm  of  pernicious 


REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE."  213 

novels.  Oh,  no !  I  assure  you  that  is  a  mistake.  Dr. 
Crosby  confines  the  new  discovery  of  fortifying  virtue 
by  steeping  it  in  temptation  wholly  and  exclusively  to 
rum.  Hannah  More's  demand  of  "  consistency,"  he 
thinks  of  no  consequence  whatever. 

But  our  movement  is  the  delight  of  rumsellers  and 
the  great  manufacturer  of  drunkards.  How  is  it,  then, 
that  anxious  and  terror-stricken  rumsellers  assemble  in 
conventions  to  denounce  us,  and  plan  methods  of  resist- 
ing us  ?  No  such  conventions  were  ever  heard  of  or 
needed  until  the  last  twenty  years.  How  is  it  that  they 
mob  our  lecturers  and  break  up  our  meetings  ?  Was  T)r. 
Crosby  or  any  of  his  class  ever  mobbed  by  rumsellers  ? 
How  is  it  that  the  moment  we  get  one  of  the  prohibi- 
tory laws  "  which  delight  rumsellers"  passed,  these 
delighted  men  form  parties  to  defeat  every  man  who 
voted  for  it,  crowd  the  lobbies  to  repeal  it,  and  never 
rest  until,  by  threat  or  bribes,  they  have  repealed  it  ? 
If  rumsellers  long  and  pray  for  the  coming  of  the 
millennium  of  prohibition,  why  don't  they  all  move 
down  to  Maine,  and  get  as  near  to  the  desired  heaven 
as  they  can  ?  If  rumsellers  delight  in  our  Total-absti- 
nence labors,  how  ungrateful  in  them  to  allow  their 
organs  all  over  the  world  to  misrepresent  and  deny 
what  little  success  even  Dr.  Crosby  allows  we  have  had 
in  Maine  !  They  ought  to  chuckle  over  it,  and  scatter 
the  news  far  and  wide. 

When  Dr.  Crosby  has  answered  half  these  questions, 
we  have  some  more  difficulties  to  propound  which  trouble 
us,  about  the  unaccountable  freaks  of  these  delighted 
rumsellers,  who,  delighted  as  they  are  with  our  work, 
yet  never  can  bear  or  praise  the  very  men  who,  Dr. 
Crosby  says,  are  constantly  employed  spending  time  and 
money  in  "  delighting  "  these  unreasonable  fellows. 

We  are  the  cause  of  all  this  drunkenness,  the  Temper- 


214  REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 

ance  movement  is  a  failure,  and  always  must  be  a  failure, 
and  ought  to  be  so. 

I  will  prove  that  Christianity  is  a  failure  in  the  same 
way.  The  famous  unbelievers,  down  from  Voltaire 
through  Mill  to  the  last  infidel  critic,  prove  Christian- 
ity, by  the  same  sort  of  argument,  to  be  a  failure  and 
the  cause  of  most  of  the  evils  that  burden  us.  Exag- 
gerate all  the  evil  that  exists,  especially  those  vices  that 
will  never  wholly  die  while  human  nature  remains  what 
it  is ;  belittle  and  cast  into  shade  all  the  progress  that 
has  been  made  ;  dwell  with  zest  on  the  new  forms  of 
sin  that  each  age  contributes  to  the  infamy  of  the  race ; 
keep  your  eyes  firmly  in  the  back  of  your  head]  and 
insist  that  there  's  nothing  equal  to  what  we  had  in  old 
times,  —  not  even  the  snow-storms  or  the  St.  Michael 
pears,  —  and  the  thing  is  done. 

Before  our  movement  began,  three  quarters  of  the 
farms  of  Massachusetts  were  sold  under  the  hammer 
for  rum-debts.  You  could  not  enter  a  public-house  in 
country  or  city,  of  the  first-class  or  the  smaller  ones, 
except  through  a  grog-shop.  Their  guests  felt  mean  if 
they  did  not  at  dinner  order  some  kind  of  wine,  and 
often  ordered  it  when  they  did  not  wish  it.  Now  the 
grog-room  is  hidden  from  sight ;  men  slink  into  it;  and 
not  more  than  one  man  in  ten  at  the  most  fashionable 
hotels,  and  not  one  in  fifty  in  common  inns,  orders  wine 
at  dinner.  Then  the  sideboard  of  every  well-to-do 
house  was  covered  with  liquors,  and  every  guest  was 
urged  to  drink ;  the  omission  to  do  so  would  have 
been  held  a  gross  neglect,  if  not  an  insult.  No  man 
was  buried  without  a  lavish  use  of  liquor ;  no  stage 
stopped  without  the  traveller  being  thought  mean  if  he 
did  not  help  the  house  by  taking  a  drink.  Now  one 
may  travel  hundreds  of  miles  on  railways  which  allow  no 
liquor  in  their  stations.  Every  farmer  furnished  drink 


215 

to  his  men ;  famous  doctors  went  drunk  to  their 
patients ;  the  first  lawyer  in  the  Middle  States  was  not 
singular  when  he  held  on  by  the  rail  in  order  to  stand 
and  argue,  half-drunk,  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  ;  rich  men  saw  to  it  that  every  clergyman 
who  attended  a  convention  was  plied  with  wine ;  and 
the  preacher  of  the  Concio  ad  Clerum  was  fed  on  bran- 
dy-punch to  be  on  a  more  exhilarated  level  than  his 
hearers.  If  a  man  caught  sight  of  a  grog-shop,  he  was 
as  sure  he  had  arrived  in  a  Christian  land  as  the  ship- 
"wrecked  sailor  felt  when  he  got  sight  of  a  gibbet. 

Dr.  Crosby  then  had  every  man,  lay  and  clerical,  on 
his  side  in  construing  the  Bible;  whereas  now  we  are  in 
a  healthy  majority.  Then  a  few  scattered  Temperance 
tracts,  like  rockets  in  a  night,  only  betrayed  how  utterly 
the  world  was  in  the  desert  on  this  subject ;  now  a  Tem- 
perance literature,  crowded  with  facts,  strong  in  argu- 
ment, filled  with  testimonies  from  men  of  the  first  emi- 
nence in  every  walk  of  life,  in  every  department  of 
science  and  literature,  challenges  and  defies  all  comers. 
Then  the  idea  of  total  abstinence  was  not  so  much  denied 
as  wholly  unknown ;  now,  if  New  England  were  polled 
to-day,  our  majority  would  be  overwhelming.  Then  all 
men  held  liquors  to  be  healthy  and  useful ;  now  seventy 
men  out  of  a  hundred,  whatever  their  practice,  deny 
that  claim,  and  the  upper  classes,  well  informed  and 
careful  of  health,  lead  the  way  in  giving  up  the  use. 
Then  the  medical  profession  waded  in  the  same  slough 
of  indulgence  and  ignorance  as  their  patients ;  now  the 
verdict  of  the  profession  is  undoubtedly  and  immeasura- 
bly against  the  use  of  intoxicating  drinks  at  all  in 
health,  and  but  seldom  in  favor  of  it  in  disease. 

We  have  driven  the  indulgence  in  drink  into  hiding 
places,  and  for  the  first  time  the  legislature  is  obliged 
and  willing  to  prohibit  the  use  of  screens  to  hide  rum- 


216  REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 

drinkers  from  the  public  view  they  dread.     Is  not  this 
skulking  evidence  of  weakening  ? 

Sixty  years  ago  the  legislature  passed  a  few  formal 
laws  perfunctorily,  and  dismissed  the  whole  subject. 
But  ten  years  ago  Liquor  gathered  at  the  state-house 
all  the  experts  of  social  science,  the  lights  of  the  medical 
profession,  all  the  famous  science  from  Harvard  College, 
and  retained  an  ex-governor,  at  vast  expense,  to  mar- 
shal this  host,  in  order  to  resist  Dr.  Miner  arid  a  few 
Bible-twisters,  whom  Liquor  seemed  somehow  to  dread, 
although  they  had  disgusted  and  repelled  all  the  sensible- 
men  in  the  State. 

Of  course  this  was  before  Dr.  Crosby  had  communi- 
cated to  the  liquor  dealers  the  comforting  fact  that  the 
Temperance  movement  was  a  failure,  and  that  they 
ought  to  be  delighted  with  it  and  with  Dr.  Miner  and 
his  Bible-twisters,  and  that  they  were  delighted  with  it, 
whether  they  themselves  knew  it  or  not ! 

And  far  above  all,  set  on  a  hill,  a  great  State,  Maine, 
challenges  the  world  to  show  her  equal  in  an  intelligent, 
law-abiding,  economical,  and  self-restraining  population ; 
while  smaller  examples  cluster  round  her,  here  and 
across  the  Atlantic ;  and  the  haughty  Episcopal  Church, 
hardest  and  last  to  be  roused  to  any  reform,  has  put  on 
record  in  its  Convocations  the  most  convincing  and  the 
most  instructive  array  of  facts  and  evidence  on  total 
abstinence  that  any  ecclesiastical  body  ever  contributed 
to  social  science.  It  is  the  ocean-wave  kissing  the 
Alps.  You  would  weary  if  I  continued  the  summary. 

Even  if  the  statistics  showed  that  the  amount  of 
liquor  consumed  increased  as  fast  as  our  population  and 
wealth  do,  —  which  they  do  not  show,  but  just  the  con- 
trary,—  that  would  not  be  sufficient  evidence  to  prove 
that  our  movement  has  failed.  The  proper  comparison 
is  between  what  we  were  in  1820,  and  what  we  should 


REVIEW  OF  CROSBY'S  "CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE."   217 

have  been  now  had  not  some  beneficent  agency  arrested 
our  downward  progress.  These  evils  left  to  themselves 
increase  by  no  simple  addition,  but  in  cubic  ratio. 

Does  Dr.  Crosby  fancy  this  active  movement  and  vast 
mass  of  fact,  opinion,  and  testimony  can  exist  without 
beneficial  influence  in  an  age  ruled  by  brains  ?  He  does 
not,  then,  understand  moral  forces  or  his  own  times. 
When,  twenty-five  years  ago,  Frederick  Douglas  was 
painting  the  Antislavcry  movement  as  a  failure  unless 
we  would  load  our  guns,  Sojourner  Truth  asked  :  "  Fred- 
erick, is  God  dead  ?"  When  I  see  the  Doctor's  unbelief 
in  the  efficacy  of  the  moral  power  and  the  weight  of 
this  mass  of  conviction,  I  am  tempted  to  ask  him :  "  Is 
your  God  dead  ?  " 

Dr.  Crosby  closes  by  stating  his  plan  and  panacea.  It 
is  a  regulated  license.  I  will  not  delay  you  by  criti- 
cising his  or  any  other  license  plan.  The  statute-books 
in  forty  States  are  filled  with  the  abortions  of  thousands 
of  license  laws  that  were  never  executed,  and  most  of 
them  were  never  intended  to  be.  We  have  as  good  a 
license  law  in  this  State  as  was  ever  devised,  and  yet 
it  leaves  sucli  an  amount  of  gross,  defiant,  unblushing 
grog-selling  as  discourages  Dr.  Crosby  and  leads  him  to 
think  nothing  at  all  has  been  done.  His  own  city,  with 
license  laws,  is  yet  so  ruled  and  plundered  by  rum  that 
timid  statesmen  advise  giving  up  republicanism  and 
borrowing  a  leaf  from  Bismarck  to  help  us. 

License  has  been  tried  on  the  most  favorable  circum- 
stances and  with  the  best  backing  for  centuries,  —  ten  or 
twelve,  at  least;  yet  Dr.  Crosby  stands  confounded 
before  the  result.  We  have  never  been  allowed  to  try 
prohibition,  except  in  one  State  and  in  some  small  cir- 
cuits. Wherever  it  has  been  tried  it  has  succeeded. 
Friends  who  know  claim  this.  Enemies,  who  have  been 
for  a  dozen  years  ruining  their  teeth  by  biting  files, 


218  REVIEW  OP  CROSBY'S  "  CALM  VIEW  OF  TEMPERANCE." 

confess  it  by  their  lack  of  argument  and  lack  of  facts, 
except  when  they  invent  them.  With  such  a  record 
may  we  not  say  that,  even  if  we  have  no  claim  to  be 
considered  Crosby  Christians,  we  have  a  right  to  ask 
one  fair  trial  of  what  has,  at  least,  never  been,  like 
license,  demonstrated  a  hundred  times  to  be  a  failure  ? 


LETTER  FROM  NAPLES. 


Naples,  April  12,  1841. 

DEAR  GARRISON,  —  I  have  borne  very  constantly  in 
mind  my  promise,  in  London,  to  write  you,  but 
have  found  nothing  in  my  way  which  I  thought  would 
be  of  interest ;  and  these  late  lines  come  not  as  a  letter, 
but  only  as  an  excuse.  For  I  know  nothing  now  of  in- 
terest, except,  perhaps,  the  loss  of  my  "Liberators," 
which  the  custom-house  of  his  Holiness  —  under  the 
general  rule,  I  believe,  forbidding  all  which  has  not  passed 
the  censorship — took  from  me  as  I  went  up  to  Rome, 
and  which  now  lie  at  Civita  Vecchia,  waiting  for  me  if  I 
ever  return  that  way. 

'T  is  a  melancholy  tour,  tins  through  Europe  ;  and  I 
do  not  understand  how  any  one  can  return  from  it 
without  being,  in  Coleridge's  phrase,  "  a  sadder  and  a 
wiser  man."  Every  reflecting  mind  at  home  must  be 
struck  with  the  many  social  evils  which  prevail  around ; 
but  the  most  careless  eye  cannot  avoid  seeing  the  painful 
contrasts  which  sadden  one  here  at  every  step,  —  wealth 
beyond  that  of  fairy  tales,  and  poverty  all  bare  and 
starved  at  its  side ;  refinement  face  to  face  with  bar- 
barism ;  cultivation  which  hardly  finds  room  to  be, 
crowded  out  on  all  sides  by  so  much  debasement.  I 
have  been  surprised  to  find  so  much  faith  in  Catholicism 
as  seems  to  exist  among  the  Italians,  even  those  who 
make  what  is  called  the  higher  classes.  Men  and  women 


'2'20  LETTER   FROM   NAPLES. 

of  every  rank,  and  with  every  appearance  of  sincerity, 
really  crowd  the  churches.  Amid  the  regret  with  which 
a  Protestant  witnesses  such  a  fact,  there  is  much  to  ad- 
mire in  the  democratic  method  of  Catholic  worship. 
No  "  sit-thou-here  "  and  "  stand-thou-there  "  spirit  class 
out  the  audience ;  no  hateful  honeycomb  of  pews  der 
forms  the  church.  The  beggar  in  rags,  the  peasant  in 
his  soiled  and  labor-stained  homespun,  kneel  on  the 
broad  marble  side  by  side  with  fashion  and  rank,  right 
under  the  hundred  lamps  which  burn  constantly  at  the 
high  altar  of  St.  Peter's  ;  and  this  all  unnoticed,  and 
seemingly  unconscious  of  any  difference  between  them- 
selves and  their  fellow-worshippers.  This  is  as  it  should 
be.  Here,  at  least,  Rome  preserves  the  spirit  of  the 
early  ages.  'T  was  well  said,— 

"  I  love  the  ever  open  door 

That  welcomes  to  the  house  of  God; 
I  love  the  wide-spread  marble  floor, 
By  every  foot  in  freedom  trod." 

One  pardons  much  for  such  a  trait,  and  I  have  lost  half 
my  dislike  to  the  wearisomely  frequent  priestly  dress, 
since  I  have  seen  it  worn  by  a  colored  man  who  mingled 
freely  with  those  about  him,  and  was  not  stared  at  as 
a  monster  when  he  entered  the  frowning  portal  of  the 
Propaganda  College  at  Rome. 

Italy,  however,  is  truly  the  land  where  "  every  pros- 
pect pleases,  and  only  man  is  vile."  Here  one  seems 
really  to  stand  on  the  matchless  shores  of  that  sea 
where  have  passed  some  of  the  most  interesting  events 
in  the  history  of  our  race.  All  Europe  is,  indeed,  the 
treasure-house  of  rich  memories,  with  every  city  a  shrine. 
Mayence,  the  mother  of  printing  and  free  trade  ;  Amalfi, 
with  her  Pandects,  the  fountain  of  law,  her  compass  of 
commerce,  her  Masaniello  of  popular  freedom ;  Naples, 


LETTER    FROM    NAPLES.  221 

with  her  buried  satellite  of  Pompeii ;  Florence,  with  her 
galaxy  of  genius ;  Rome,  whose  name  is  at  once  history 
and  description, —  will,  indeed,  ever  he  the  Meccas  of 
the  mind.  One  must  see  them  to  realize  the  boundless 
wealth,  the  luxury,  the  refinement  of  art,  to  which  the 
ancients  had  attained.  The  modern  world  deems  itself 
rich  when  it  gathers  up  only  the  fragments.  But  all 
the  fascinations  of  art,  all  the  luxuries  of  modern  civili- 
zation, are  no  balance  to  the  misery  which  bad  laws  and 
bad  religion  alike  entail  on  the  bulk  of  the  people.  The 
Apollo  himself  cannot  dazzle  one  blind  to  the  rags,  want, 
and  misery  which  surround  him.  Nature  is  not  wholly 
beautiful.  For  even  when  she  marries  a  matchless  sky  to 
her  bay  of  Naples,  the  impression  is  saddened  by  the 
presence  of  degraded  and  suffering  humanity.  When  you 
meet  in  the  space  of  the  same  street  a  man  encompassed 
with  all  the  equipage  of  wealth,  and  the  beggar  on  whose 
brow  disease  and  starvation  have  written  broadly  his  title 
to  your  pity,  the  question  is  involuntary,  Is  this  a  Chris- 
tian city  ?  Are  both  these  Christians  ?  To  my  mind  the 
answer  is,  No.  In  our  own  country  the  same  contrast 
exists,  but  it  is  not  so  painfully  prominent  as  here.  I 
hope  the  discussion  of  this  question  of  property  will  not 
cease  till  the  Church  is  convinced  that,  from  Christian 
lips,  ownership  means  nothing  but  responsibility  for  the 
right  use  of  what  God  has  given ;  that  the  title  of  a 
needy  brother  is  as  sacred  as  the  owner's  own,  and  is 
infringed  upon,  too,  whenever  that  owner  allows  the  siren 
voice  of  his  own  tastes  to  drown  the  cry  of  another's 
necessities. 

The  Woman  Question  is  another  topic  in  which  every 
one  who  becomes  familiar  with  European  customs  must, 
I  think,  take  a  still  deeper  interest  than  before.  Most 
Americans  are  shocked  to  see  women  engaged  in  every 
kind  of  labor,  and  doing  full  one  half  of  the  hard 


222  LETTER    FROM    NAPLES. 

work  on  the  continent,  from  macadamizing  roads  up 
through  every  kind  of  agricultural  and  town  work.  The 
last  link  that  is  left  of  the  Feudal  system  hangs  on  the 
limbs  of  woman.  The  superiority  of  man,  which  an  age 
of  violence  and  military  organization  originated,  still  sur- 
vives, even  in  the  lowest  classes ;  and  you  never  meet 
a  band  of  peasants  by  the  road-side  with  a  heavy  bur- 
den among  them  that  you  do  not  see  it  on  the  head  of 
woman,  while  the  men  of  the  party  lounge  carelessly 
along.  There  is  one  great  advantage  in  this,  though 
little  meant  as  such.  Women  are  almost,  if  not  en- 
tirely, as  unrestrained  in  action  and  choice  of  pursuit  as 
men ;  and  this  state  of  things  gives  us  an  opportunity  of 
observing  how  woman's  approach  to  the  enjoyment  of 
her  rights,  even  under  so  many  unfavorable  circum- 
stances, affects  society.  A  poor  education  and  false 
faith  of  course  deeply  affect  the  moral  condition  of  these 
nations;  but  making  a  fair  allowance  for  both,  —  if  the 
testimony  of  those  long  resident  here  may  be  trusted,— 
this  difference  of  social  habits  in  no  degree  contributes 
to  render  it  inferior  to  our  own.  The  experiment  of 
woman's  presence  everywhere  in  social  life, —  of  sex  de- 
barring her  from  no  scene,  and  excusing  her  from  no 
toil,  —  has  been  fairly  tried  in  France,  Italy,  and  Ger- 
many, and  its  compatibility  with  good  morals  and  every 
social  good  put  beyond  a  doubt.  I  can  give  only  a  trav- 
eller's impression,  with  such  information  as  he  gathers 
in  passing,  and  refer  especially  to  those  classes  whom  a 
kind  Providence  has  obliged  to  let  their  own  hands 
minister  to  their  wants.  Among  others,  of  course, 
wealth  and  idleness  produce  only  corruption.  Every 
hour  of  life,  and  especially  every  step  we  have  taken  in 
these  countries,  show  us  more  and  more  the  importance 
of  the  Woman  Question,  as  it  is  called. 

You  must  not  think  my  long  silence  has  sprung  from 


LETTER    FROM   NAPLES.  223 

any  want  of  interest  in  the  cause.  This  moral  stagna- 
tion and  death  here  only  make  us  value  more  highly  the 
stirring  arena  at  home.  You  live  fast,  battling  for 
humanity  against  so  many  forms  of  oppression.  None 
know  what  it  is  to  live  till  they  redeem  life  from  its 
seeming  monotony  by  laying  it  a  sacrifice  on  the  altar 
of  some  great  cause.  There  is  more  happiness  in  one 
such  hour  than  in  dwelling  forever  with  the  beautiful  and 
grand  which  Angelo's  chisel  has  redeemed  from  the 
"  marble  chaos,"  or  the  pencil  of  Raphael  has  given  to 
immortality.  Nothing  brings  back  home  so  pleasantly, 
or  with  so  much  vividness,  to  Ann,1  as  to  see  a  colored 
man  occasionally  in  the  street ;  so  you  see  we  are  ready 
to  return  to  our  posts  in  nothing  changed. 

Indeed,  there  is  one  view  in  which  I  have  learned 
to  value  my  absence.  I  recognize  in  some  degree  the 
truth  of  the  assertion  that  associations  tend  to  destroy 
individual  independence ;  and  I  have  found  difficulty  in 
answering  others,  however  clear  my  own  mind  might  be, 
when  charged  with  taking  steps  which  the  sober  judg- 
ment of  age  would  regret,  —  with  being  hurried  reck- 
lessly forward  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  moment  and 
the  excitement  of  heated  meetings.  I  am  glad,  there- 
fore, to  have  had  the  opportunity  of  holding  up  the 
cause,  with  all  its  incidents  and  bearings,  calmly  before 
my  own  mind  ;  of  having  distance  of  place  perform, 
as  far  as  possible,  the  part  of  distance  of  years  ;  of  being 
able  to  look  back,  cleared  of  all  excitement,  though  not 
I  hope  of  all  enthusiasm,  by  other  scenes  and  studies, 
upon  the  course  we  have  taken  the  last  few  years ;  — 
and  having  done  so,  1  am  rejoiced  to  say  that  every  hour 
of  such  thought  convinces  me  more  and  more  of  the 
overwhelming  claims  our  cause  has  on  the  life-long  devo- 
tion of  each  of  us ;  of  the  perfect  rightfulness,  as  well  as 

i  Mrs   Phillips. 


224  LETTER    FROM    NAPLES. 

fhe  expediency,  of  every  step  we  have  taken,  while  I 
recognize  still  more  clearly  than  ever  the  folly  of  yield- 
ing up  its  mighty  interests  to  prejudices,  however 
sacred,  —  or,  on  the  other  hand,  of  attempting  to  gain 
it  a  temporary  success  hy  sacrificing  to  it  other  rights 
which,  whether  more  or  less  important,  are  still  rights, 
and  to  be  sacredly  respected  ;  and  I  hope  to  be  per- 
mitted to  return  to  my  place,  prepared  to  urge  its  claims 
with  more  earnestness,  and  to  stand  fearlessly  by  it 
without  a  doubt  of  its  success. 

When  Paul's  "  appeal  unto  Caesar  "  brought  him  into 
this  Bay  of  Naples,  he  must  have  seen  all  its  fair  shores 
and  jutting  headlands  covered  with  bath  and  villa, 
imperial  palaces  and  temples  of  the  gods.  A  prisoner  of 
a  despised  race,  he  stood,  perhaps  for  the  first  time,  in 
the  presence  of  the  pomp  and  luxury  of  the  Roman 
people.  Even  amid  their  ruins,  I  could  not  but  realize 
how  strong  the  faith  of  the  Apostle  to  believe  that 
the  message  lie  bore  would  triumph  alike  over  their 
power  and  their  religion.  Struggling  against  priest  and 
people,  may  we  cherish  a  like  faith ! 
Yours  truly, 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 


ADDRESS   TO   THE    BOSTON    SCHOOL 
CHILDREN. 


On  Tuesday  forenoon,  July  28,  1865,  the  Seventy-Second  Annual 
Festival  of  the  Public  Schools  of  Boston  took  place  in  Music  Hall. 
There  was,  as  usual,  a  densely  crowded  attendance  of  the  parents 
and  friends  of  the  children.  The  hall  was  handsomely  decorated  for 
the  occasion.  The  choir  of  children  numbered  twelve  hundred, 
under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Carl  Zerrahn.  Addresses  were  made  by 
Mayor  Lincoln,  Rev.  Henry  Burroughs,  Jr.,  Hon.  Richard  H.  Dana, 
and  Wendell  Phillips,  Esq.  "  I  spoke  without  gesture,"  Mr.  Phillips 
says,  "  fearing  if  I  moved  a  finger.  I  should  topple  over  on  one  side 
and  fall  into  Mayor  Lincoln's  arms." 

FALLOW-CITIZENS:  I  was  invited  by  the  Mayor  to 
-T  address  the  scholars  of  the  schools  of  Boston,  but 
like  my  friend  Mr.  Dana,  who  preceded  me,  I  hardly 
know  in  what  direction  to  look  in  the  course  of  this 
address  for  the  scholars.  I  can  hardly  turn  my  back  on 
them,  nor  can  I  turn  my  back  on  you.  I  shall  have  to 
make  a  compromise,  —  that  everlasting  refuge  of  Ameri- 
cans. [Applause.]  I  recollect,  when  I  was  in  college, 
that  when  a  classmate  came  upon  the  stage  we  could 
recognize  in  the  audience  where  the  family,  the  mother, 
or  sister  were,  by  noticing  him  when  he  made  his  first 
bow.  He  would  look  toward  them,  and  they  would  inva- 
riably bow  in  return.  By  this  inevitable  sign,  I  have 
distinguished  many  a  mother,  sister,  and  father  among 
the  audience  to-day 

15 


226          ADDRESS   TO    THE    BOSTON    SCHOOL    CHILDREN. 

This  is  the  first  time  for  many  years  that  I  have 
participated  in  a  school  festival.  I  have  received  no 
invitation  since  1824,  when  I  was  a  little  boy  in  a  class 
in  a  Latin  school,  when  we  were  turned  out  in  a  grand 
procession  on  yonder  Common  at  nine  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  And  for  what  ?  Not  to  hear  eloquent  music. 
No;  but  for  the  sight  of  something  better  than  art  or 
music,  that  thrilled  more  than  eloquence,  a  sight  which 
should  live  in  the  memory  forever,  the  best  sight  which 
Boston  ever  saw,  —  the  welcome  to  Lafayette  on  his 
return  to  this  country  after  an  absence  of  a  score  of 
years.  I  can  boast,  boys  and  girls,  more  than  you.  I 
can  boast  that  these  eyes  have  beheld  the  hero  of  three 
revolutions ;  this  hand  has  touched  the  right  hand  that 
held  up  Hancock  and  Washington.  Not  all  this  glorious 
celebration  can  equal  that  glad  reception  of  the  nation's 
benefactor  by  all  that  Boston  could  offer  him,  —  a  sight 
of  its  children.  It  was  a  long  procession,  and,  unlike 
other  processions,  we  started  punctually  at  the  hour 
published.  They  would  not  let  us  wander  about,  and 
did  not  wish  us  to  sit  down.  I  there  received  my  first 
lesson  in  hero-worship.  I  was  so  tired  after  four  hours' 
waiting  I  could  scarcely  stand.  But  when  I  saw  him,— 
that  glorious  old  Frenchman  !  —  I  could  have  stood  until 
to-day.  Well,  now,  boys,  these  were  very  small  times 
compared  with  this.  Our  public  examinations  were  held 
up  in  Boylston  Hall.  I  do  not  believe  we  ever  afforded 
banners ;  I  know  we  never  had  any  music.  Now  they 
take  the  classes  out  to  walk  on  the  Common  at  eleven 
o'clock.  We  were  carried  out  into  a  small  place  eight 
feet  by  eleven,  solid  walls  on  one  side  and  a  paling  on 
the  other,  which  looked  like  a  hencoop;  there  the  public 
Latin  scholars  recreated  themselves.  They  were  very 
small  times  compared  with  these. 

As  Mr.  Dana  referred  to  the  facilities  and  opportu- 


ADDRESS   TO    THE    BOSTON    SCHOOL    CHILDREN.         227 

nities  that  the  Boston  boys  enjoy,  I  could  not  but  think 
what  it  is  that  makes  the  efficient  man.  Not  by  floating 
with  the  current ;  you  must  swim  against  it  to  develop 
strength  and  power.  The  danger  is  that  a  boy,  with 
all  these  facilities,  books,  and  libraries,  may  never  make 
that  sturdy  scholar,  that  energetic  man,  we  would  wish 
him  to  become.  When  I  look  on  such  a  scene  as  this, 
I  go  back  to  the  precedent  alluded  to  by  you,  sir,  of  him 
who  travelled  eighteen  miles  and  worked  all  day  to  earn 
a  book,  and  sat  up  all  night  to  read  it.  By  the  side  of 
me,  in  the  same  city  of  Boston,  sat  a  boy  in  the  Latin 
School,  who  bought  his  dictionary  with  money  earned  by 
picking  chestnuts.  Do  you  remember  Cobbett,— and 
Frederick  Douglas,  whose  eloquent  notes  still  echo 
through  the  land,  who  learned  to  read  from  the  posters 
on  the  highway ;  and  Theodore  Parker,  who  laid  the 
foundation  of  his  library  with  the  book  for  which  he 
spent  three  weeks  in  picking  berries  ? 

Boys,  you  will  not  be  moved  to  action  by  starvation 
and  want.  Where  will  you  get  the  motive  power  ? 
You  will  have  the  spur  of  ambition  to  be  worthy  of  the 
fathers  who  have  given  you  these  opportunities.  Re- 
member, boys,  what  fame  it  is  that  you  bear  up,  —  this 
old  name  of  Boston !  A  certain  well-known  poet  says 
it  is  the  hub  of  the  universe.  Well,  this  is  a  gentle 
and  generous  satire.  In  Revolutionary  days  they  talked 
of  the  Boston  Revolution.  When  Samuel  Johnson  wrote 
his  work  against  the  American  colonies,  it  was  Boston 
he  ridiculed.  When  the  king  could  not  sleep  over  night, 
he  got  up  and  muttered  "  Boston."  When  the  procla- 
mation of  pardon  was  issued,  the  only  two  excepted  were 
the  two  Boston  fanatics,  —  John  Hancock  and  Sam 
Adams.  [Applause.]  But  what  did  Boston  do  ?  They 
sent  Hancock  to  Philadelphia  to  write  his  name  on  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  letters  large  enough, 


228         ADDRESS   TO    THE    BOSTON    SCHOOL    CHILDREN. 

almost,  for  the  king  to  read  on  the  other  side  of  the 
ocean.  Boston  then  meant  liberty.  Come  down  to 
forty  or  fifty  years  ago.  What  did  Boston  mean  when 
the  South  went  mad,  and  got  up  a  new  flag,  and  said 
they  would  put  it  in  Boston  on  Faneuil  Hall  ?  It  was 
Boston  that  meant  liberty,  as  Boston  had  meant  inde- 
pendence. And  when  our  troops  went  out  in  the  last 
war,  what  was  it  that  gave  them  their  superiority  ?  It 
was  the  brains  they  carried  from  these  schools. 

When  General  Butler  was  stopped  near  the  Relay 
House  with  a  broken  locomotive,  he  turned  to  the  Eighth 
regiment,  and  asked  if  any  one  of  them  could  mend  it. 
A  private  walked  out  of  the  ranks,  and  patted  it  on  the 
back  and  said,  "  I  ought  to  know  it ;  I  made  it."  When 
we  went  down  to  Charleston,  and  were  kept  seven  miles 
off  from  the  city,  the  Yankees  sent  down  a  New  Hamp- 
shire Parrott  that  would  send  a  two-hundred-pound  shot 
into  their  midst.  The  great  ability  of  New  England  has 
been  proved.  Now,  boys,  the  glory  of  a  father  is  his 
children.  That  father  has  done  his  work  well  who  has 
left  a  child  better  than  himself.  The  German  prayer 
is,  "  Lord,  grant  I  may  be  as  well  off  to-morrow  as 
yesterday  !  "  No  Yankee  ever  uttered  that  prayer. 
He  always  means  that  his  son  shall  have  a  better 
starting-point  in  life  than  himself.  The  glory  of  a 
father  is  his  children.  Our  fathers  made  themselves 
independent  seventy  or  eighty  years  ago.  It  remains 
for  us  to  devote  ourselves  to  liberty  and  the  welfare  of 
others,  with  the  generous  willingness  to  do  toward  others 
as  we  would  have  others  do  to  us. 

Now,  boys,  this  is  my  lesson  to  you  to-day.  You 
cannot  be  as  good  as  your  fathers,  unless  you  are  better. 
You  have  your  fathers'  example, — the  opportunities  and 
advantages  they  have  accumulated,  —  and  to  be  only  as 
good  is  not  enough.  You  must  be  better.  You  must 


ADDRESS    TO   THE    BOSTON   SCHOOL    CHILDREN.         229 

copy  only  the  spirit  of  your  fathers,  and  not  their  im- 
perfections. There  was  an  old  Boston  merchant,  years 
ago,  who  wanted  a  set  of  china  made  in  Pekin.  You 
know  that  Boston  men  sixty  years  ago  looked  at  both 
sides  of  a  cent  before  they  spent  it,  and  if  they  earned 
twelve  cents  they  would  save  eleven.  He  could  not 
spare  a  whole  plate,  so  he  sent  a  cracked  one,  and 
when  he  received  the  set,  there  was  a  crack  in  every 
piece.  The  Chinese  had  imitated  the  pattern  exactly. 

Now,  boys,  do  not  imitate  us,  or  there  will  be  a 
great  many  cracks.  Be  better  than  we.  We  have 
invented  a  telegraph,  but  what  of  that  ?  I  expect,  if  I 
live  forty  years,  to  see  a  telegraph  that  will  send  mes- 
sages without  wire,  both  ways  at  the  same  time.  If  you 
do  notrinvenTTt,  you  are  not  so  good  as  we  are.  You 
are  bound  to  go  ahead  of  us.  The  old  London  physician 
said  the  way  to  be  well  was  to  live  on  a  sixpence,  and 
earn  it.  That  is  education  under  the  laws  of  necessity. 
We  cannot  give  you  that.  Underneath  you  is  the 
ever-watchful  hand  of  city  culture  and  wealth.  All  the 
motive  we  can  give  you  is  the  name  you  bear.  Bear 
it  nobly  ! 

I  was  in  the  West  where  they  partly  love  and  partly 
hate  the  Yankee.  A  man  undertook  to  explain  the  dif- 
ference between  a  watch  made  in  Boston  and  one  made 
in  Chicago.  He  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  it.  I 
answered  him  as  a  Boston  man  should :  "  We  always  do 
what  we  undertake  to  do  thoroughly."  That  is  Boston. 
Boston  has  sefc  the  example  of  doing;  do  better.  Sir 
Robert  Peel  said  in  the  last  hours  of  his  life :  "  I  have 
left  the  Queen's  service ;  I  have  held  the  highest  offices 
in  the  gift  of  the  Crown  ;  and  now,  going  out  of  public 


life  [he  had  just  removed  the  breadTirom  the  table], 
the  happiest  thought  I  have  is  that  when  the  poor  man 
breaks  his  bread  in  his  cottage,  he  thanks  God  that  I 


230         ADDRESS   TO   THE   BOSTON   SCHOOL   CHILDREN. 

ever  lived."  Fellow-citizens,  the  warmest  compliment  I 
ever  heard  was  breathed  into  my  ears  from  the  lips  of 
a  fugitive  from  South  Carolina.  In  his  hovel  at  home 
he  said :  "  I  thank  God  for  Boston ;  and  I  hope  before 
I  die  I  may  tread  upon  its  pavements."  Boston  has 
meant  liberty  and  protection.  See  to  it  in  all  coming 
time,  young  men  and  women,  you  make  it  stand  for 
good  learning,  upright  character,  sturdy  love  of  liberty, 
willingness  to  be  and  do  for  others  as  you  would  have 
others  be  and  do  unto  you.  But  make  it,  young  men 
and  women,  make  it  a  dread  to  every  one  who  seeks  to 
do  evil.  Make  it  a  home  and  a  refuge  for  the  oppressed 
of  all  lands. 


THE   OLD  SOUTH  MEETING-HOUSE. 


An  address  delivered  in  the  Old  South  Meeting- House,  June  4, 
1876,  and  revised  by  Mr.  Phillips.  It  was  in  this  building  that  he 
made  his  last  public  address,  —  the  tribute  to  Harriet  Martineau, 
which  closes  this  volume,  —  December  26,  1883. 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  Why  are  we  here  to-day  ? 
Why  should  this  relic,  a  hundred  years  old,  stir 
your  pulses  to-day  so  keenly  ?  We  sometimes  find  a 
community  or  an  individual  with  their  hearts  set  on 
some  old  roof  or  great  scene  ;  and  as  we  look  on,  it 
seems  to  us  an  exaggerated  feeling,  a  fond  conceit,  an 
unfounded  attachment,  too  emphatic  value  set  on  some 
ancient  thing  or  spot  which  memory  endears  to  them. 

But  we  have  a  right  to-day  —  this  year  we  have  a  right 
beyond  all  question,  and  with  no  possibility  of  exagger- 
ating the  importance  of  the  hour  —  to  ask  the  world 
itself  to  pause  when  this  nation  completes  the  first  hun- 
dred years  of  its  life  ;  because  these  forty  millions  of 
people  have  at  last  achieved  what  no  race,  no  nation,  no 
age  hitherto  has  succeeded  in  doing.  We  have  founded 
a  republic  on  the  unlimited  suffrage  of  the  millions. 
We  have  actually  worked  out  the  problem  that  man,  as 
God  created  him,  may  be  trusted  with  self-government. 
We  have  shown  the  world  that  a  Church  without  a 
bishop,  and  a  State  without  a  king  is  an  actual,  real, 
every-day  possibility.  Look  back  over  the  history  of 
the  race ;  where  will  you  find  a  chapter  that  precedes 


232  THE   OLD    SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE. 

us  in  that  achievement  ?  Greece  had  her  republics,  but 
they  were  the  republics  of  one  freeman  and  ten  slaves  ; 
and  the  battle  of  Marathon  was  fought  by  slaves  un- 
chained from  the  door-posts  of  their  masters'  houses. 
Italy  had  her  republics :  they  were  the  republics  of 
wealth  and  skill  and  family,  limited  and  aristocratic. 
She  had  not  risen  to  a  sublime  faith  in  man.  Holland 
had  her  republic,  the  republic  of  guilds  and  landholders, 
trusting  the  helm  of  State  to  property  and  education. 
Arid  all  these  which  at  their  best  held  but  a  million  or 
two  within  their  narrow  limits,  have  gone  down  in  the 
ocean  of  time. 

A  hundred  years  ago  our  fathers  announced  this  sub- 
lime, and,  as  it  seemed  then,  foolhardy  declaration,  — 
that  God  intended  all  men  to  be  free  and  equal :  all 
men,  without  restriction,  without  qualification,  without 
limit.  A  hundred  years  have  rolled  away  since  that 
venturous  declaration  ;  and  to-day,  with  a  territory  that 
joins  ocean  to  ocean,  with  forty  millions  of  people,  with 
two  wars  behind  her,  with  the  sublime  achievement  of 
having  grappled  with  the  fearful  disease  that  threatened 
her  central  life  and  broken  four  millions  of  fetters,  the 
great  Republic,  stronger  than  ever,  launches  into  the 
second  century  of  her  existence.  The  history  of  the 
world  has  no  such  chapter,  in  its  breadth,  its  depth,  its 
significance,  or  its  bearing  on  future  history. 

Well  may  we  claim  that  this  centennial  year  is  the 
baptism  of  the  human  race  into  a  new  hope  for  humanity. 
Are  we  not  entitled,  then,  coming  with  the  sheaves  of  such 
a  harvest  in  our  hands,  to  say  to  the  world,  "  Behold  the 
blessing  of  God  on  our  right  faith  in  the  human  race ! " 
Well,  gentlemen,  if  that  is  sober  prose,  without  one  tittle 
of  exaggeration,  without  one  fond  conceit  borrowed  from 
our  kindred  with  the  actors  or  from  our  birth  in  these 
streets,  —  if  that  is  the  sober  record,  —  with  how  much 


THE   OLD   SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE.  233 

pride,  with  what  a  thrill,  with  what  tender  and  loyal 
reverence,  may  we  not  hunt  up  and  cherish,  and  guard 
from  change  or  desecration,  the  spot  where  this  marvel- 
lous enterprise  began,  the  roof  under  which  its  first 
councils  were  held,  where  the  air  still  trembles  and 
burns  with  Otis  and  Sam  Adams  ? 

Except  the  Holy  City,  is  there  any  more  memorable 
or  sacred  place  on  the  face  of  the  earth  than  the  cradle 
of  such  a  change  ?  Athens  has  her  Acropolis,  but  the 
Greek  can  point  to  no  such  immediate  and  distinct 
results.  Her  influence  passes  into  the  web  and  woof  of 
history  mixed  with  a  score  of  other  elements,  and  it 
needs  a  keen  eye  to  follow  it.  London  has  her  Palace 
and  Tower,  and  her  St.  Stephen's  Chapel ;  but  the 
human  race  owes  her  no  such  memories.  France  has 
spots  marked  by  the  sublimest  devotion  ;  but  the  pilgrim- 
age and  the  Mecca  of  the  man  who  believes  and  hopes 
for  the  human  race  is  not  to  Paris.  It  is  to  the  seaboard 
cities  of  the  great  Republic.  And  when  the  flag  was  as- 
sailed, when  the  merchant  waked  up  from  his  gain,  the 
scholar  from  his  studies,  and  the  regiments  marched  one 
by  one  through  the  streets,  which  were  the  pavements 
that  thrilled  under  their  footsteps?  What  walls  did 
they  salute  as  the  regimental  flags  floated  by  to  Gettys- 
burg and  Antietam  ?  These !  Our  boys  carried  down 
to  the  battlefields  the  memory  of  State  Street  and 
Faneuil  Hall  and  the  Old  South  Church. 

We  had  a  signal  prominence  in  those  early  days.  It 
was  not  our  merit ;  it  was  an  accident  perhaps.  But  it 
was  a  great  accident  in  our  favor  that  the  British  Parlia- 
ment chose  Boston  as  the  first  and  prominent  object  of 
its  wrath.  It  was  on  the  men  of  Boston  that  Lord  North 
visited  his  revenge.  It  was  our  port  that  was  to  be  shut, 
and  its  commerce  annihilated.  It  was  Sam  Adams  and 
John  Hancock  who  enjoy  the  everlasting  reward  of  being 


234  THE   OLD    SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE. 

the  only  names  excepted  from  the  royal  proclamation  of 
forgiveness. 

It  was  only  an  accident ;  but  it  was  an  accident  which, 
in  the  stirring  history  of  the  most  momentous  change 
the  world  has  seen,  placed  Boston  in  the  van.  Naturally, 
therefore,  in  our  streets  and  neighborhood  came  the  ear- 
liest collision  between  England  and  the  Colonies.  Here 
Sam  Adams,  the  ablest  and  ripest  statesman  God  gave 
to  the  epoch,  forecast  those  measures  which  welded 
thirteen  Colonies  into  one  thunderbolt,  and  launched  it 
at  George  III.  Here  Otis  magnetized  every  boy  into 
a  desperate  rebel.  Here  the  fit  successors  of  Knox  and 
Hugh  Peters  consecrated  their  pulpits  to  the  defence 
of  that  doctrine  of  the  freedom  and  sacredness  of  man 
which  the  State  borrowed  so  directly  from  the  Christian 
Church.  The  towers  of  the  North  Church  rallied  the 
farmers  to  the  Lexington  and  Concord  fights  ;  and  these 
old  walls  echoed  the  people's  shout,  when  Adams  brought 
them  word  that  Governor  Hutchinson  surrendered  and 
withdrew  the  red-coats.  Lingering  here  still  are  the 
echoes  of  those  clashing  sabres  and  jingling  spurs  that 
dreamed  Warren  could  be  awed  to  silence.  Otis's  blood 
immortalizes  State  Street,  just  below  where  Attucks  fell 
(our  first  martyr),  and  just  above  where  zealous  patriots 
made  a  teapot  of  the  harbor. 

It  was  a  petty  town,  of  some  twenty  thousand  inhabi- 
tants ;  but  "  the  rays  of  royal  indignation  collected  upon 
it  served  only  to  illuminate,  and  could  not  consume." 
Almost  every  one  of  its  houses  had  a  legend.  Every 
public  building  hid  what  was  treasonable  debate,  or  bore 
bullet-marks  or  bloodshed,  —  evidence  of  royal  displeas- 
ure. It  takes  a  stout  heart  to  step  out  of  a  crowd  and 
risk  the  chances  of  support  when  failure  is  death.  The 
strongest,  proudest,  most  obstinate  race  and  kingdom  on 
one  side  ;  a  petty  town  the  assailant,  —  its  weapons, 


THE    OLD   SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE.  235 

ideas  ;  its  trust,  God  and  the  right ;  its  old-fashioned  men 
patiently  arguing  with  cannon  and  regiments  ;  blood  the 
seal  of  the  debate,  and  every  stone  and  wall  and  roof 
and  doorway  witness  forever  of  the  angry  tyrant  and 
sturdy  victim. 

Now,  gentlemen,  man  is  not  a  mere  animal,  to  eat, 
and  sleep,  and  gain,  and  lay  up,  and  enjoy,  and  pass 
away  to  his  fathers.  If  we  had  IXBCII  only  that ;  if  the 
North  had  been  a  pedler  race,  as  the  South  supposed, 
not  willing  to  risk  sixpence  for  an  idea,  —  no  Democratic 
lawyers  in  yonder  Court  Street  would  have  shut  up  their 
doors,  put  their  keys  in  their  pockets,  and  asked  of  Gov- 
ernor Andrew  a  commission  when  that  piece  of  bunting 
was  fired  upon  near  Fort  Sumter  !  It  was  only  six  feet 
square  of  cotton  ;  it  was  only  a  few  stars  and  stripes  ;  it 
was  only  an  insult  offered  to  the  sentiment  of  twenty 
millions  of  people.  But  it  made  Democrats  and  Repub- 
licans forget  their  differences,  and  a  million  of  men 
crowd  down  to  the  Gulf.  It  was  only  a  sentiment.  But 
what  does  it  feed  on  ?  Ascend  one  of  those  lofty  build- 
ings above  Chicago,  and  grow  weary  in  counting  her 
crowd  of  masts  and  her  miles  of  warehouses  ;  and  when 
you  have  done  it,  you  remember  that  the  sagacity  and 
the  thrift  of  three  hundred  thousand  men  have  created 
that  great  centre  of  industry,  and  there  comes  to 
your  mind,  perhaps  sooner  than  anything  else,  the  old 
lullaby,  — 

"  How  doth  the  little  busy  bee 

Improve  each  shining  hour, 
And  gather  honey  all  the  day 
From  every  opening  flower." 

It  is  industry  ;  it  is  thrift ;  it  is  comfort ;  it  is  wealth. 
But  on  Bunker  Hill  let  somebody  point  out  to  you  the 
church-tower  whose  lantern  told  Paul  Revere  that  Mid- 
dlesex was  to  be  invaded.  Search  till  your  eye  rests  on 


236  THE    OLD    SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE. 

this  tiny  spire  which  trembled  once  when  the  mock  In- 
dian whoop  bade  England  defiance.  There  is  the  elm 
wh^re  Washington  first  drew  his  sword.  Here  Winter 
Hill,  whose  cannon-ball  struck  Brattle-Street  Church. 
At  your  feet  the  sod  is  greener  for  the  blood  of  Warren, 
which  settled  it  forever  that  no  more  laws  were  to  be 
made  for  us  in  London.  The  thrill  you  feel  is  that 
sentiment  which,  in  1862,  made  twenty  million  men,  who 
had  wrangled  for  forty  years,  close  up  their  angry  ranks 
and  carry  that  insulted  bunting  "to  the  Gulf,"  treading 
down  dissensions  and  prejudices  harder  to  conquer  than 
Confederate  cannon.  We  cannot  afford  to  close  any 
school  which  teaches  such  lessons. 

Go  ask  the  Londoner,  crowded  into  small  space,  what 
number  of  pounds  laid  down  on  a  square  foot,  what 
necessities  of  business,  would  induce  him  to  pull  down 
the  Tower  and  build  a  counting-house  on  its  site !  Go 
ask  Paris  what  they  will  take  from  some  business  cor- 
poration for  the  spot  where  Mirabeau  and  Danton,  or, 
later  down,  Lamartine  saved  the  great  flag  of  the  tri- 
color from  being  drenched  in  the  blood  of  their  fellow- 
citizens  !  What  makes  Boston  a  history  ?  Not  so  many 
men,  not  so  much  commerce.  It  is  ideas.  You  might 
as  well  plough  it  with  salt,  and  remove  bodily  into  the 
more  healthy  elevation  of  Brookline  or  Dorchester,  but 
for  State  Street,  Faneuil  Hall,  and  the  Old  South ! 

What  does  Boston  mean  ?  Since  1630,  the  living 
fibre  running  through  history  which  owns  that  name, 
means  jealousy  of  power,  unfettered  speech,  keen  sense 
of  justice,  readiness  to  champion  any  good  cause.  That 
is  the  Boston  Laud  suspected,  North  hated,  and  the 
negro  loved.  If  you  destroy  the  scenes  Avhich  perpetuate 
that  Boston,  then  rebaptize  her  Cottonville  or  Shoetown. 
Don't  belittle  these  memories  ;  they  lie  long  hid,  but  only 
to  grow  stronger.  You  mobbed  John  Brown  meetings 


THE   OLD    SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE.  237 

in  1860,  and  seemed  to  forget  him  in  1861 ;  but  the  boys 
in  blue,  led  by  that  very  mob,  wearing  epaulets,  marched 
from  State  Street  to  the  Gulf,  because  "  John*  Brown's 
soul  was  marching  on."  That  and  the  flag  —  only  two 
memories,  two  sentiments  —  led  the  ranks. 

My  friend  has  told  you  that  the  church  has  removed 
its  altar  ;  we  submit.  God  is  not  worshipped  in  temples 
builded  with  men's  hands  ;  and  when  their  tower  lifted 
itself  in  proud  beauty  to  the  heavens,  and  varied  stone 
and  rich  woods  furnished  a  new  shelter  for  the  descend- 
ants of  Eckley,  and  Prince,  and  Sewall  and  the  others 
that  worshipped  here,  the  consecration  that  the  Puritans 
gave  these  walls  —  to  Christ  and  the  Church  —  was 
annulled. 

But  these  walls  received  as  real  a  consecration  when 
Adams  and  Otis  dedicated  them  to  liberty.  We  do  not 
come  here  because  there  went  hence  to  heaven  the 
prayers  of  Sewall  and  Prince  and  the  early  saints  of 
the  colony.  We  come  to  save  walls  ^that  heard  and 
stirred  the  eloquence  of  Quincy,  — that  keen  blade  which 
so  soon  wore  out  the  scabbard,  —  determined,  "under 
God,  that  wheresoever,  whensoever,  or  howsoever  we 
shall  be  called  to  make  our  exit,  WE  WILL  DIE  FREEMEN  ! " 
These  arches  will  speak  to  us,  as  long  as  they  stand,  of  the 
sublime  and  sturdy  religious  enthusiasm  of  Adams;  of 
Otis's  passionate  eloquence  and  single-hearted  devotion  ; 
of  Warren  in  his  young  genius  and  enthusiasm  ;  of  a 
plain,  unaffected,  but  high-souled  people  who  ventured 
all  for  a  principle,  and  to  transmit  to  us,  unimpaired, 
the  free  lips  and  self-government  which  they  inherited. 
Above  and  around  us  unseen  hands  have  written,  "  This 
is  the  cradle  of  Civil  Liberty,  child  of  earnest  religious 
faith."  I  will  not  say  it  is  a  nobler  consecration  ;  I  will 
not  say  that  it  is  a  better  use.  I  only  say  we  come  here 
to  save  what  our  fathers  consecrated  to  the  memories  of 


238  THE    OLD    SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE. 

the  most  successful  struggle  the  race  has  ever  made  for 
the  liberties  of  man.  You  spend  half  a  million  for  a 
schoolhouse.  What  school  so  eloquent  to  educate  citi- 
zens as  these  walls  ?  Napoleon  turned  his  Simplon  road 
aside  to  save  a  tree  Caesar  had  once  mentioned.  Won't 
you  turn  a  street  or  spare  a  quarter  of  an  acre  to  remind 
boys  what  sort  of  men  their  fathers  were  ?  Think  twice 
before  you  touch  these  walls.  We  are  only  the  world's 
trustees.  The  Old  South  no  more  belongs  to  us  than 
Luther's,  or  Hampden's,  or  Brutus's  name  does  to  Ger- 
many, England,  or  Rome.  Each  and  all  are  held  in  trust 
as  torchlight  guides  and  inspiration  for  any  man  strug- 
gling for  justice,  and  ready  to  die  for  the  truth. 

I  went  to  Chicago  more  than  twenty  years  ago  ;  and 
they  showed  me  the  log-house,  thirty  feet  square  and 
twenty  feet  high,  in  which  the  first  officer  of  the  United 
States,  the  first  white  man,  lived,  where  now  are  half 
a  million  of  human  beings.  There  it  nestled  amid  spa- 
cious inns,  costly  warehouses,  and  luxurious  homes.  I 
said  to  them,  "  Why  not  cover  it  with  plate-glass,  and 
let  it  stand  there  forever,  the  cradle  of  the  great  city  of 
the  lakes  ? "  But  I  could  not  wake  any  sentiment  in 
that  quarter-million  of  traders ;  and  the  ancestral  cabin 
which,  to  an  anointed  eye,  measured  the  vast  space  be- 
tween that  1816  and  1856,  with  its  wealth  and  splendor, 
passed  away.  Then  I  came  back  here.  That  same 
week  I  found  at  my  door  a  slave-holder  from  Arkansas. 
Singularly  enough,  in  those  bitter  years,  he  trusted 
himself  to  me  as  a  guide  through  the  historic  scenes  of 
Boston.  But  it  shows  you  how  true  it  is  that  a  prophet 
has  no  honor  in  his  own  household  ;  how  his  reputation 
grows  the  farther  off  you  get !  Well,  the  first  place  I 
took  him  to  was  the  house  of  John  Hancock,  We  as- 
cended those  steps.  1  had  learned  from  his  talk,  that, 
on  that  frontier  where  he  was  born,  he  had  never  seen  a 


THE   OLD    SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE.  239 

building  older  than  twenty-five  years.  As  we  stood 
under  that  balcony,  which  some  of  you  may  remember, 
he  turned  to  me  and  said,  "  Is  it  actually  true  that  the 
man  who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence  stood 
on  this  flagstone,  and  lifted  that  latch  ?  "  I  said,  "  Yes, 
sir  ;  and  above  you,  his  body  lay  in  state  for  some  six 
or  eight  days."  The  man  sat  down  on  the  flagstone, 
wholly  unnerved,  his  face  pale  with  emotion.  Said  he, 
"  You  must  excuse  me ;  but  1  never  felt  as  I  feel  to-day.'* 
That  was  Boston  revealing  to  an  every-day  life  the  pa- 
triotism and  nobleness  smothered  by  petty  cares.  He 
came  to  our  streets  to  wake  that  throb  in  his  nature ; 
he  grew  a  better  man  and  a  more  chivalrous  citizen 
when  that  thrill  answered  to  the  memory  of  the  first 
signer  of  the  Declaration. 

Gentlemen,  these  walls  are  the  college  for  such  train- 
ing. The  saving  of  this  landmark  is  the  best  monu- 
ment you  can  erect  to  the  nien  of  the  Revolution.  You 
spend  forty  thousand  dollars  here,  and  twenty  thousand 
dollars  there,  to  put  up  a  statue  of  some  old  hero ;  you 
want  your  son  to  gaze  on  the  nearest  approach  to  the 
features  of  those 

"dead,  but  sceptred  sovereigns,  who  still  rule 
Our  spirits  from  their  urns." 

But  what  is  a  statue  of  Cicero  compared  to  standing  where 
your  voice  echoes  from  pillar  and  wall  that  actually 
heard  his  philippics  !  How  much  better  than  a  picture 
of  John  Brown  is  the  sight  of  that  Blue  Ridge  which 
filled  his  eye,  when,  riding  to  the  scaffold,  he  said 
calmly  to  his  jailer,  "  This  is  a  beautiful  country ;  I 
never  noticed  it  before."  Destroy  every  portrait  of 
Luther,  if  you  must,  but  save  that  terrible  chamber 
where  he  fought  with  the  Devil,  and  translated  the 
Bible.  Scholars  have  grown  old  and  blind,  striving  to 


240  THE    OLD    SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE. 

put  their  hands  on  the  very  spot  where  bold  men  spoke, 
or  brave  men  died  ;  shall  we  tear  in  pieces  the  roof  that 
actually  trembled  to  the  words  which  made  us  a  nation  ? 
It  is  impossible  not  to  believe,  if  the  spirits  above  us  are 
permitted  to  know  what  passes  in  this  terrestrial  sphere, 
that  Adams  and  Warren  and  Otis  are  to-day  bending 
over  us,  asking  that  the  scene  of  their  immortal  labors 
shall  not  be  desecrated  or  blotted  from  the  sight  of  men. 

Consecrate  it  again,  in  the  worship  and  memory  of  a 
people  !  Consecrate  it,  in  order  that,  if  another  rebel- 
lion breaks  out  against  the  flag ;  if  our  young  men  need 
once  more  to  have  their  hearts  quickened  to  the  sublime 
significance  of  the  Republic  which  protects  them  ;  if  once 
more  we  must  rally  flags  and  marshal  ranks  for  the 
protection  of  liberty,  —  the  young  men  shall  be  able  to 
look  up  to  Faneuil  Hall  and  the  Old  State  House  and 
these  walls,  as  a  quickening  inspiration,  before  they 
leave  these  streets  to  go  down  and  show  themselves 
worthy  of  their  fathers.  Let  these  walls  stand,  if  only 
to  remind  us  that,  in  those  days,  Adams  and  Otis,  advo- 
cates of  the  newest  and  extremest  liberty,  found  their 
sturdiest  allies  in  the  pulpit ;  that  our  Revolution  was 
so  much  a  crusade  that  the  Church  led  the  van. 

Summon  it  again,  ye  venerable  walls,  to  its  true  place 
in  the  world's  toil  for  good  !  Give  us  May  hews  and 
Coopers  again  ;  and  let  the  children  of  the  Pilgrims 
show  that  religious  conviction,  veneration  for  "  the  great 
of  old,"  and  a  stern  purpose  that  our  flag  shall  everv- 
where  and  always  mean  justice,  are  a  threefold  cord 
holding  this  nation  together,  never  to  be  broken.  We 
have  a  great  future  before  us,  —  how  grand,  human 
forecast  cannot  measure,  —  yes,  a  great  future  endan- 
gered by  many  and  grave  perils.  Our  way  out  of  these, 
faith  believes  in,  but  mortal  eye  cannot  see.  It  is 
wisdom  to  summon  every  ally,  to  save  every  possible 


THE   OLD    SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE.  241 

help.  Educate  the  people  to  noble  purpose.  Lift  them 
to  the  level  of  the  highest  motive.  Enforce  by  every 
possible  appeal  the  influence  of  the  finest  elements  of 
our  nature.  Let  the  great  ideas  —  self-respect,  free- 
dom, justice,  self-sacrifice  —  help  each  man  to  tread  the 
body  under  his  feet.  This  worship  of  great  memories, 
noble  deeds,  sacred  places,  —  the  poetry  of  history,  —  is 
one  of  the  keenest  ripeners  of  such  elements.  Seize 
greedily  on  every  chance  to  save  and  emphasize  these. 

Give  me  a  people  freshly  and  tenderly  alive  to  sucli 
influences,  and  I  will  laugh  at  money-rings  or  dema- 
gogues armed  with  sensual  temptations.  Men  marvelled 
at  the  uprising  which  hurled  slavery  to  the  dust.  It  was 
young  men  who  dreamed  dreams  over  patriot  graves,  — - 
enthusiasts  wrapped  in  memories !  Marble,  gold,  and 
granite  are  not  real ;  the  only  actual  reality  is  an 
idea. 

Gentlemen,  I  remember,  —  Mr.  Chairman,  you  will  re- 
member, also, —  that  some  six  months  ago  the  mayor 
and  aldermen  debated  how  they  should  use  some  eigh- 
teen or  twenty  thousand  dollars  left  them  by  Jonathan 
Phillips  to  ornament  the  streets  of  Boston  ;  and  then  the 
city  government  decided  —  and  decided  very  properly 
-  that  they  could  do  no  better  with  that  money  than 
place  before  the  people  a  statue  of  the  great  mayor, 
Josiah  Quincy,  to  whom  this  city  owes  so  much.  It  was 
a  very  worthy  vote  under  those  circumstances  ;  but  if 
the  great  mayor  were  living  to-day,  he  would  be  here 
with  the  Massachusetts  —  yes,  he  would  be  here,  Mr. 
Chairman,  with  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  in 
his  right  hand,  and  the  Mechanic  Association  in  the 
other,  and  he  would  protest  against  the  use  of  a  dollar  of 
that  money  for  his  personal  honor  until  it  had  been  first 
used  to  save  this  immortal  legacy.  I  wish  that  I  had  a 
voice  in  that  aldermanic  corps  ;  1  would  propose,  with  no 

16 


242  THE    OLD    SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE. 

discredit  to  the  great  mayor  —  let  no  one  tear  a  leaf 
from  his  well-earned  laurels !  but  it  was  the  mechanics 
of  Boston  that  threw  tea  into  the  dock  ;  it  was  the  me- 
chanics of  Boston  that  held  up  the  hands  of  Sam  Adams  ; 
it  was  the  mechanics  of  Boston,  Paul  Revere  one  of  them, 
that  made  the  Green  Dragon  immortal,  —  and  I  would 
take  that  eighteen  thousand  dollars  and  add  fifty  thou- 
sand more,  and  let  the  city  preserve  this  building  as  a 
Mechanics'  Exchange  for  all  time.  The  merchants  have 
their  gilded  room,  fit  gathering  place  for  consultations ; 
but  the  men  that  carried  us  through  the  Revolution,  — 
caulkers !  why,  some  men  think  we  borrowed  caucus 
from  their  name  !  —  the  men  that  carried  us  through  the 
Revolution  were  the  mechanics  of  Boston.  Where  do 
they  gather  to-day  ?  On  the  sidewalks  and  pavements 
of  Court  Street,  in  the  open  air !  We  owe  them  a  debt, 
in  memory  of  what  this  grand  movement,  in  its  cradle, 
owed  to  them.  I  would  ally  the  Green  Dragon  Tavern 
and  the  Sons  of  Liberty  with  the  Old  South,  the  grand- 
sons, and  great  grandsons,  and  representatives  of  the 
men  who  made  the  bulk  of  that  meeting  before  which 
Hutchinson  quailed,  and  Colonel  Dalrymple  put  on  his 
hat  and  left  the  Council  Chamber. 

It  wras  the  message  of  the  mechanics  of  Boston  that 
Sam  Adams  carried  to  the  governor  and  to  Congress. 
They  sent  him  to  Salem  and  Philadelphia ;  they  lifted 
and  held  him  up  till  even  purblind  George  III.  could 
distinguish  his  ablest  opposer,  and  learned  to  hate  with 
discrimination. 

Shelter  them  under  this  roof;  consecrate  it  in  its 
original  form  to  a  grand  public  use  for  the  common  run 
of  the  people,  —  the  bone  and  muscle.  It  will  be  the 
normal  school  of  politics.  It  will  be  the  best  civil-service 
reform  agency  that  the  Republican  party  can  adopt  and 
use  to-day. 


THE   OLD   SOUTH    MEETING-HOUSE.  243 

The  influence  of  these  old  walls  will  prevent  men,  if 
anything  can,  from  becoming  the  tools  of  corruption  or 
tyranny.  "  Recall  every  day  one  good  thought,  read  one 
line  line,"  says  the  German  Shakspeare.  Yes  ;  let  every 
man's  daily  walk  catch  one  ray  of  golden  light,  and  his 
pulse  throb  once  each  day  nobly,  as  he  passes  these  walls  ! 
No  gold,  no  greed,  can  canker  the  heart  of  such  a  people. 
Once  in  their  hands,  neither  need,  greed,  nor  the  clamor 
for  wider  streets  will  ever  desecrate  what  Adams  and 
Warren  and  Otis  made  sacred  to  the  liberties  of 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   CHURCH. 


I. 

Address  at  the  New  England  Antislavery  Convention  at  the  Melo- 
deon,  Boston,  May  28-30,  1850.  A  clergyman  by  the  name  of  Cor- 
liss having  expressed  his  fears  that  some  of  the  advocates  of  the 
slaves  were  lacking  in  a  due  appreciation  of  the  Bible,  and  were 
therefore  tending  toward  infidelity,  Mr.  Phillips  rose  and  said :  — 

I  WISH  to  say  one  word  in  regard  to  the  remarks 
which  have  been  addressed  to  us,  in  order  that  the 
Antislavery  enterprise  may  stand  aright  before  this  au- 
dience. It  might  be  judged  from  the  tone  of  the  last 
speaker,  that  the  Abolitionists  see  an  enemy  and  an  ob- 
stacle in  the  Bible.  He  has  been  entreating  us  to  have 
greater  regard  for  the  Bible.  He  has  been  endeavoring 
to  impress  upon  us  reverence  for  that  book.  You  might 
draw  the  inference  that  we  needed  such  entreaties. 

Now,  in  behalf  of  the  Abolitionists,  let  me  say,  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Bible  in  regard  to  its  merits  or 
its  faults,  except  in  one  point :  does  it  sustain  or  rebuke 
slavery  ?  If  any  speaker  wanders  beyond  that,  he  speaks 
on  his  own  responsibility ;  he  speaks  that  for  which  this 
society  is  not  amenable.  Perhaps  it  may  be  impossible 
for  him  to  avoid  expressing  his  private  opinion  of  the 
Bible  as  to  other  points,  in  the  course  of  illustrating 
some  Antislavery  topic.  Yet  you  are  to  take  them  as 
illustrations.  And  when  my  friend  Foster  introduced 


THE   BIBLE    AND   THE   CHURCH.  245 

some  speculations  of  his  own,  on  other  points  than 
slavery,  he  had  no  right  to  do  it  otherwise  than  as 
illustrations. 

Now,  the  friend  who  has  just  spoken  will,  I  think, 
grant  us  this,  —  that  no  speaker,  unless  it  be  Mr.  Foster, 
has  wandered  beyond  the  just  limits  of  Antislavery  dis- 
cussion ;  that  our  Antislavery  speakers  have  never  yet 
allowed  that  the  Bible  sustained  slavery  ;  that  we  have 
felt  no  need,  therefore,  to  throw  it  overboard.  And  al- 
though we  may  put  the  question  like  my  friend  Wright, 
What  would  you  do  in  certain  circumstances?  let  it  be 
remembered  that  the  Antislavery  enterprise  puts  such 
circumstances  as  merely  fictitious,  hypothetical,  —  and 
claims  the  Bible  on  its  own  side.  [Prolonged  applause.] 

Remember,  that  although  we  feel  there  is  enough  in 
mere  humanity,  without  the  Bible,  to  condemn  slavery  ; 
that  the  verdict  against  it  is  so  self-evident  as  to  destroy 
the  title  of  any  book  to  be  thought  inspired  which  sanc- 
tions such  a  system,  —  still  we,  so  far  from  bringing  any 
such  accusation  against  the  Bible,  have  always  claimed 
it  in  behalf  of  justice  and  liberty.  It  is  from  Moses 
Stuart,  it  is  from  Daniel  Webster,  it  is  from  the  Church 
and  the  politicians,  that  this  attack  on  the  Bible  comes, 
and  not  from  us.  [Loud  cheers.]  I  know  I  am  repeat- 
ing things  abundantly  well  known  to  all  our  friends  ;  but 
it  is  often  the  result  of  such  speeches  as  we  have  just 
heard,  that  the  audience  go  away  under  a  wrong  im- 
pression. I  contend  that  everything  that  has  been  said, 
that  the  principles  of  these  resolutions,  that  the  sub- 
stratum of  all  that  has  been  spoken,  all  claim  the  Bible  as 
a  basis ;  and  that,  confident  the  Bible  is  on  our  side,  we 
will  not  be  forced  into  any  position  of  seeming  hostility 
to  it.  We  have  issues  enough  with  this  community. 

Because  the  clergy  of  our  little  day  and  neighborhood 
pervert  the  Scriptures,  shall  that  make  us  disbelieve 


246  THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   CHURCH. 

them  ?  No  matter  for  the  texts  :  enough  for  us  to  know 
that  on  every  field  where  justice  has  triumphed,  the 
Bible  has  led  the  van  ;  that  tyrants  in  every  age  have 
hated  it ;  humanity,  in  every  step  of  its  progress,  has 
caught  watchwords  from  its  pages.  Freedom  of  thought 
was  won  by  those  who  would  read  it  in  spite  of  Popes ; 
freedom  of  speech  by  those  who  would  expound  it  in 
defiance  of  Laud.  Luther  and  Savonarola,  Howard  and 
Oberlin,  F£nelon  and  Wilberforce,  Puritan  and  Hugue- 
not, Covenanter  and  Quaker,  all  hugged  it  to  their 
breasts.  It  was  to  print  the  Bible  that  bold  men  fought 
for  the  liberty  of  the  press.  When  the  oppressor  hurries 
to  place  it  in  every  cottage,  when  the  slave-holder  labors 
that  his  slave  may  be  able  to  read  it,  —  then  will  we  begin 
to  believe  that  Isaiah  struggled  to  rivet  "  every  yoke,'* 
that  Paul  was  opposed  to  giving  every  man  that  which  is 
just  and  equal,  and  that  the  New  Testament  was  written 
to  "  strengthen  the  weak  hands  and  confirm  the  feeble 
knees "  of  tottering  iniquities. 

But  not  till  then  shall  a  few  petty  priests  shut  us  out 
from  sympathy  with,  and  confidence  in,  the  noble  army 
of  martyrs  and  the  glorious  company  of  the  Apostles. 
Not  till  then  shall  the  Stuarts  and  Waylands,  with  their 
little  black  gowns,  hide  from  us  the  burning  light  of  the 
great  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  What  though,  holding 
up  the  Book,  they  cry,  "  See  here  and  look  there,  note 
these  specks  on  the  sun  ; "  we  know  still  it  is  the  sun, 
and  astronomy  tells  us  that  what  is  dark  there  to-day 
will  perhaps  be  brightness  and  living  light  to-morrow. 
So  with  the  Bible.  What  though,  here  and  there,  there 
should  be  isolated  texts  which  look  inconsistent  with  the 
great  spirit  which  informs  the  whole ;  coming  years, 
we  know,  will  show  them,  like  spots  on  the  sun,  all 
bright  with  the  splendid  effulgence  of  Infinite  Love. 
Shall  an  ambiguous  line  in  Timothy  cover  up  the  whole 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    CHURCH.  247 

Sermon  on  the  Mount  ?  No !  we  still  claim  the  Bible  ; 
and,  bad  as  the  American  Church  is,  it  will  take  all  its 
cunning  and  craft  to  make  us  doubt  the  purity  of  Jesus 
or  the  humanity  of  Paul. 

Let  those  lock  up  the  Bible  who  fear  it ;  our  prayer  is, 
May  it  find  its  way  into  the  hovel  of  every  slave  and  into 
the  heart  of  every  legislator  in  the  land  !  Our  original  at- 
tempt was  this,  —  to  show  that  the  Bible  and  Christianity 
repudiate  slavery.  For  a  long  time,  in  one  unbroken 
phalanx,  the  so-called  Christian  Church  denounced  such 
a  statement  as  infidelity ;  and  from  Maine  to  Georgia, 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi,  we  had  the  un- 
broken testimony  of  the  Church  that  the  Bible  was  pro- 
slavery.  Now  the  Church  is  divided.  We  have  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  against  Moses  Stuart ;  we  have  Albert 
Barnes  against  Leonard  Woods. 

The  time  was  when  the  Recorder,  and  the  religious 
press,  claimed,  with  the  New  York  Observer,  that  until 
you  could  mend  the  Constitution,  you  must  mind  it. 
We  have  urged  our  principles  until  we  have  scared  up 
William  H.  Seward,  and  pitted  him  against  Daniel  Web- 
ster. [Great  applause.]  We  have  found  persons  who 
are  willing  "  to  bewray  not  him  that  wandereth."  And 
therefore  it  can  never  be  often  enough  repeated,  that 
when  the  question  comes  as  to  Christianity  itself,  not  to 
American  Christianity  ;  to  the  Bible  itself,  not  to  the 
Bible  in  the  glass  of  Moses  Stuart,  —  that  the  Aboli- 
tionist holds  on  to  the  Bible  as  his,  with  his  right  hand 
and  with  his  left  hand.  And  I  wish  you  to  go  away 
with  that  conviction,  spite  of  the  remonstrances  which 
I  think  have  been  unnecessarily,  however  sincerely, 
made  to  us. 


248  THE   BIBLE   AND   THE    CHURCH. 


n. 

From  an  address  at  Music  Hall  before  the  Twenty-Eighth  Congre- 
gational Society,  Sunday,  April  24,  1859. 


Bible  is  a  record  of  the  religious  history  of  the 
1  Jews.  It  is  a  record  of  the  struggle,  as  all  history 
seems  to  be,  between  the  conservative  and  the  progres- 
sive elements  in  society  ;  between  the  element  which 
believes,  and  the  element  which  distrusts  ;  between  the 
element  which  reaches  forward,  and  the  element  which 
is  contented  with  the  present  ;  between  the  element 
which  eats  its  bread  in  selfishness,  and  the  element 
which  seeks  to  raise  itself  and  its  fellows  by  sounding  on 
and  on  in  the  great  ocean  of  living  thought.  It  has  two 
sides,  —  the  priesthood  and  the  prophets  ;  and  although 
the  word  "  people  "  is  sometimes  used  in  a  general  sense, 
yet  both  Testaments  taken  together  represent  the  strug- 
gle betwixt  the  established  and  progressing,  —  between 
the  priesthood  and  the  prophets.  I  want  to  read  you 
this  morning,  the  description  which  God  gives  of  both, 
partly  in  words,  partly  in  action. 

[Mr.  Phillips  then  read  one  or  two  passages  from  the 
Old  Testament,  and  said  :  —  ] 

If  you  have  heard  of  a  church  where  a  man  could  say, 
after  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  experience,  "I  lived  a  life 
of  worldliness  and  trickery  ;  I  stood  in  the  market-place 
and  let  out  my  gift  of  persuasion  to  shield  the  guilty, 
and  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  judge,  to  turn  the 
murderer  out  into  society,  and  make  black  crime  look 
like  white  justice  ;  and  I  went  into  the  church,  and  heard 
nothing  of  it,  and  the  next  day  I  went  out  into  the  world 
to  do  the  same  deeds  in  the  week  to  come,  and  remem- 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    CHURCH.  249 

bered  nothing  that  I  had  heard,"  —  to  such  a  church  the 
language  of  the  Lord  is,  "  Hearken  not  unto  the  words 
of  the  prophets  that  prophesy  unto  you :  they  make  you 
vain  ;  they  speak  a  vision  of  their  own  heart ;  they  steal 
every  one  words  from  his  neighbor.  Is  not  my  word 
like  as  a  fire  ?  saith  the  Lord  :  and  like  a  hammer  that 
breaketh  the  rock  in  pieces  ? " 

The  other  side  of  the  picture  is  found  in  such  passages 
as  this,  —  "  Think  not  I  am  come  to  send  peace  on  the 
earth :  I  am  not  come  to  send  peace,  but  a  sword."  I 
stand,  if  with  one  exception,  then  only  one,  in  the  only 
Christian  church  in  the  city.  I  stand  in  the  pulpit  from 
which,  1  verily  think,  the  ear  of  God  has  listened  to  more 
Christian  truth,  within  a  dozen  years,  than  from  any  or 
all  of  the  pulpits  of  Boston  put  together.  I  stand  in  the 
place  of  one  whose  great  offence  was  that  he  practised 
what  he  preached.  He  dared  to  take  his  torch,  and 
flare  it  in  the  face  of  the  public  and  recognized  creeds. 
He  differed  but  little,  at  the  outset,  from  the  faith  of  the 
Unitarians  that  he  saw  around  him ;  but  he  pronounced 
the  word  "  Liberty  "  —  and  Unitarianism  vanished  with  a 
shriek  !  He  found  himself  alone,  with  God's  sky  above 
him,  and  the  world  for  an  audience.  They  said,  "  He  is 
a  reckless  man,  he  tells  all  he  knows.  He  is  a  rash 
man,  he  utters  all  he  thinks."  If  he  were,  I  should  say 
with  the  old  divine,  when  divinity  meant  something, 
u  Thank  God  for  a  rash  man  once  in  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury !  "  They  said,  "  He  shall  not  have  the  sounding- 
board  of  Brattle  Street,  nor  the  walls  of  Chauncy  Place 
for  an  audience ; "  and  when  they  denied  him  these, 
they  gave  him  the  Rocky  Mountains  for  a  sounding- 
board,  and  the  heart  of  every  hopeful  and  oppressed  man 
for  an  audience. 

You  and  I  are  called  "  infidels,"  which  means,  merely, 
that  we  do  not  submit  our  necks  to  yokes.  But,  men 


250  THE   BIBLE    AND    THE   CHURCH. 

and  women,  brothers  and  sisters,  if  your  gathering  here 
has  done  no  other  good,  it  has  done  this,  —  what  was 
the  New  England  Church,  in  its  ideal,  has  come  to  be  a 
mere  yoke  in  which  the  awakened  religious  life  was 
fastened,  and  it  became  a  spiritual  slavery,  so  that  all 
the  machineries  of  outside  life  were  brought  to  bear  as  if 
for  the  manufacture  of  hypocrites.  It  lias  become  the 
outer  shed  of  the  factory,  the  appendage  of  the  shop,  the 
rich  man's  kitchen.  It  contents  itself  with  the  police- 
man's duty  of  blinding  the  eyes  of  the  working-men, 
and  striving  to  make  them  contented.  The  undertone 
of  its  preaching  is  the  clink  of  the  dollar. 

I  have  studied  the  history  of  the  New  England  Church  ; 
I  know  what  the  world  owes  to  Calvinism,  to  the  pulpit ;  I 
have  no  wish  to  tear  a  leaf  from  its  laurels  ;  its  history  is 
written  and  sealed,  —  but  God  knows  that,  within  the  last 
thirty  years,  the  ecclesiastical  machinery  of  New  Eng- 
land has  manufactured  hypocrisy  just  as  really  as  Lowell 
manufactures  cotton.  The  Pope  himself,  with  all  the 
ingenuity  of  a  succession  of  the  most  astute  intellects 
that  Christendom  has  known,  could  not  have  devised 
machinery  more  exactly  suited  to  crush  free  thought, 
and  to  make  each  man  a  sham.  It  was  never  more 
plainly  shown  than  in  an  article  published  in  one  of  the 
papers  of  the  day,  which  arrogates  to  itself  a  semi-reli- 
gious character,  —  the  Boston  Traveller  of  the  13th  of 
April.  It  refers  to  Dr.  Kirk's  sermon  on  "  Infidel  Phil- 
anthropy." What  a  title  !  "  Infidel  Philanthropy  "  ! 
Black  white;  moist  dry;  hot  cold;  "Infidel  Philan- 
thropy "  !  There  was  a  Man  once  who  said,  "By  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  The  beloved  disciple  said, 
"  He  that  loveth  not  his  brother,  whom  he  hath  seen, 
how  shall  he  love  God,  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ?"  "  In- 
fidel loving  your  brother  ! "  The  writer  in  the  Traveller 
says  :  — 


THE   BIBLE    AND   THE    CHURCH.  251 

"  We  have  not  unfrequently  thought  that  the  combination  of 
infidel  philanthropy,  angry  political  violence,  and  religious 
devotion  which  has  been  enlisted  against  slavery,  was  the 
cause  of  the  ill  success  which  has  thus  far  befallen  this 
work.  .  .  . 

44  We  hardly  know  how  to  speak  in  fitting  terms,  in  the 
brief  space  which  is  allotted  to  our  editorial  column,  of  the 
theoretical  and  practical  infidelity  of  the  present  da}*.  It 
certainty  presents  an  entirely  different  phase  from  that  which 
was  witnessed  in  the  days  of  Paine  and  Voltaire  and  their 
associates.  Instead  of  the  ribald  rj*,  sensuality,  and  blas- 
phemy of  that  day,  it  presents  to  us  now  seriousness,  philan- 
throp}',  and  religion." 

When  Paul  "  reasoned  of  righteousness,  temperance, 
and  a  judgment  to  come,  Felix  trembled."  When  infi- 
delity reasons  of  "seriousness,  philanthropy,  and  religion" 
the  Felix  of  the  day  has  a  right  to  tremble.  But  how 
blind  the  writer  must  be !  As  if  the  Church  of  God  was 
a  place,  and  not  a  power  !  Why,  when  the  news  of  this 
great  experiment  in  the  West  Indies  came  to  this  coun- 
try, as  your  preacher  tells  it,  the  infidels  asked,  "  Is  the 
man  temperate  ?  Does  he  love  his  brother  and  not  shed 
his  blood  ?  Does  he  respect  his  wife  ?  Does  he  teach 
his  children?"  and  the  Church  asked,  "  Does  he  make 
as  much  rum  as  he  did  before  ?  Are  there  as  many 
hogsheads  of  sugar  exported  from  Jamaica  ?  Show  me 
the  statistics  !  "  God  said,  "  Justice  !  When  I  founded 
the  universe,  I  saw  to  it  that  right  should  be  profitable." 
Infidelity  said,  "  Amen  !  I  cannot  see,  but  I  believe." 
The  Church  said,  "  Prove  it !  " 


THE  PULPIT. 


A  Discourse  before  the  Twenty-Eighth  Congregational  Society, 
Music  Hall,  November  18,  1860. 

I  AM  going  to  use  the  hour  you  lend  me  this  morning 
in  speaking  of  the  pulpit.  Not  that  I  expect  to  say 
anything  new  to  you  who  have  statedly  frequented  these 
seats  for  many  years  ;  but  the  subject  commends  itself 
to  my  interest  just  at  this  moment  when  we  all  feel  so 
earnestly  the  propriety  and  the  duty  of  endeavoring  to 
perpetuate  this  legacy  of  Theodore  Parker. 

This  pulpit,  —  there  are  two  elements  which  distin- 
guish it  from  all  other  pulpits  in  New  England,  which 
distinguish  it  emphatically  from  all  other  pulpits  in  the 
city.  One  is  this :  you  allow  it  to  be  occupied  by  men 
and  by  women,  by  black  men  and  white  men,  by  the 
clergy  and  by  laymen.  That  is  a  very  short  statement, 
and  seemingly  a  very  simple  one  ;  but  how  vast  an  in- 
terval of  progress  is  measured  by  the  extent  of  that  sim- 
ple statement!  It  seems  to  me  the  first,  the  very  first 
time  that  the  central  idea  of  New  England  has  gotten 
expression  ;  for  if  there  be  anything  that  lies  at  the  very 
root  of  New  England  moral  life,  it  is  a  protest  against 
the  idea  of  a  priesthood, —  a  select  class,  set  apart  with 
peculiar  authority,  and  capable,  and  they  alone,  of  pecu- 
liar functions.  Our  churches  have  drifted  away  from 
the  old  idea ;  but  New  England  was  the  vanguard  of  that 
Protestant  protest  against  the  idea  of  a  priest,  —  the  idea 


THE    PULPIT.  253 

that  the  laying  on  of  hands,  or  the  consent  of  a  brother- 
hood of  peculiar  devotion,  could  so  set  apart  one  indivi- 
dual as  to  make  him  more  capable  of  certain  functions, 
or  more  entitled  to  instruct.  You,  it  seems  to  me,  are 
the  first  who  have  boldly  faced  the  ultimate  consequences 
of  that  principle.  Congregationalism  blossoms  in  its 
"  bright,  consummate  flower  "  here.  1  feel  a  peculiar  in- 
terest in  this  principle.  The  first  man,  if  you  will  allow 
me  to  go  back  for  a  moment,  —  the  first  man  who  bore  my 
name  this  side  of  the  ocean,  said  to  his  church  at  Water- 
town,  when  they  proceeded  to  induct  him  to  office  be- 
cause of  his  calling  in  England,  "  If  they  would  have 
him  stand  minister  by  that  calling  which  he  received 
from  the  prelates  in  England,  he  would  leave  them." 
When,  a  year  later,  Governor  Winthrop  went  to  Water- 
town  to  settle  certain  dissensions  there,  the  church  said 
to  him,  "  If  you  come  as  a  magistrate  you  have  no  busi- 
ness here ;  if  you  come  with  authority  from  the  court  we 
have  no  business  with  you ;  if  you  come  as  friends  from 
a  neighbor  church  you  are  welcome."  That  was  a  fair 
representation  of  the  original  spirit  of  New  England. 
When  you  initiated  your  church,  you  remembered  it. 
Down  to  the  present  moment  it  has  grown  and  unfolded, 
until  at  last  you  stand  here  with  a  platform  which  re- 
cognizes nothing  but  moral  purpose  ;  which  ignores,  sex, 
race,  profession  ;  which  goes  down  to  the  central  root  of 
the  pulpit,  —  a  moral  purpose,  —  and  says,  practically, 
Whoever  can  help  us  in  that  is  welcome  here. 

The  second  element  that  distinguishes  you  is,  no  creed. 
You  have  remembered  another  great  philosophical  prin- 
ciple, that  men  never  can  unite  on  metaphysics.  The 
human  machine  cannot  beat  time  in  unison  with  a  mil- 
lion of  others.  Charles  V.,  when  he  endeavored  to 
crowd  Europe  into  one  creed,  and  resigned,  tried,  you 
remember,  to  make  a  dozen  watches  beat  time  together, 


254  THE    PULPIT. 

and  failed.  Then  he  said,  "  What  a  fool  I  have  been  all 
my  life,  trying  to  make  a  million  of  minds  beat  time  to- 
gether !  "  But  there  is  one  thing  which  can  melt  multi- 
tudes together,  which  can  make  a  million  of  men  one. 
It  is  not  metaphysics,  it  is  not  dogma,  but  it  is  purpose, — 
the  same  which  moulds  a  political  party  into  one  thun- 
derbolt, the  same  which  at  all  times  aggregates  men, 
travelling  over  different  routes,  and  actuated  by  different 
motives,  to  one  single  end. 

You  are  not  as  new  in  that  as  your  enemies  would 
have  it  believed ;  for  it  is  a  singular  but  forgotten  fact 
that  the  first  churches  in  New  England,  the  first  three 
in  this  city,  and  the  general  church  throughout  New 
England  at  its  earliest  day,  had  no  statement  of  doctrine 
in  their  creeds.  They  confined  themselves  to  a  simple 
statement  of  purpose ;  for  our  fathers  did  not  attempt  to 
refine,  they  felt,  —  which  has  always  been  the  strength 
of  all  ages,  —  and  obeying,  with  simple,  childlike  loyalty, 
that  instinctive  feeling,  they  shaped  their  churches  to 
serve  their  age.  You  are  in  that  but  the  descendants,  the 
legitimate  children  of  New  England  ideas.  Not  that  I 
think  it  necessary  to  prove  that  Protestantism  sustains 
us,  but  simply  to  show  that  the  ignorance  and  short-sight- 
edness of  critics  fail  to  see  that  you  are  not  an  abnormal 
monster,  but  the  normal  growth  of  New  England  progress. 
I  should  spend  the  whole  hour  that  you  give  me  if  I  in- 
sisted, as  it  deserves,  on  this  first  or  this  second  element 
of  your  difference  from  the  churches  about  you,  but  it 
is  enough  to  state  them. 

Let  us  look  now  for  a  moment  at  the  essence  of  the 
pulpit,  and  in  order  to  that,  in  a  moment,  I  will  read 
you  my  text.  There  is  no  mystery  about  a  pulpit. 
There  is  no  necessary  connection  between  a  church  and 
a  pulpit,  a  very  common  mistake.  You  may  have  as 
much  or  as  little  of  a  church  as  you  please.  I  believe  in 


THE   PULPIT.  .255 

more  of  a  church  than  most  of  you  do.  I  think  the  ex- 
perience of  centuries  has  shown  that  an  organization  of 
men  for  the  culture  of  what  you  may  consider  the  reli- 
gious sentiment  and  devotional  feeling,  the  unfolding  of 
these  two  elements  of  our  nature,  is  a  good  thing.  I 
think  that  to  a  certain  extent  the  "  ordinances  "  of  what 
are  called  churches  are  good.  Understand  me,  I  would 
never  join  one  of  those  petty  despotisms  which  usurp  in 
our  day  the  name  of  a  Christian  Church.  I  would  never 
put  my  neck  into  that  yoke  of  ignorance  and  supersti- 
tion led  by  a  Yankee  Pope,  and  give  my  good  name  as  a 
football  for  their  spleen  and  bigotry.  That  lesson  I 
learned  of  my  father  long  before  boyhood  ceased. 

I  could  never  see  any  essential  difference  between  the 
one  portentjjous  Roman  Pope  and  the  thousand  petty  ones 
who  ape  him  in  our  pulpits.  In  the  fervor  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, men  dreamed  they  were  getting  rid  of  the  claim  to 
infallibility  and  the  right  to  excommunicate.  But  the 
Protestant  Church,  in  consequence  of  the  original  sin  of 
its  constitution,  soon  lapsed  into  the  same  dogmatism  and 
despotism.  Indeed,  Macaulay  does  not  seem  to  believe 
that  there  ever  was  any  real  intent  in  the  Reformers  to 
surrender  these  prerogatives.  "  The  scheme  was,"  he 
says,  "  merely  to  rob  the  Babylonian  enchantress  of  her 
ornaments,  to  transfer  the  cup  of  her  sorceries  to  other 
hands,  spilling  as  little  as  possible  by  the  way"  But  I 
quite  agree  with  the  last  speaker  who  occupied  this  desk, 
Mr.  Sanborn  of  Concord,  when  he  intimated  the  emi- 
nent utility,  perhaps  necessity,  of  a  pastor  in  the  full 
sense  of  that  term.  The  many  needs  of  your  daily 
domestic  life  in  which  he  could  aid  you  are  evident. 

But  a  pulpit  has  no  connection  with  a  church.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  which  makes  seven  sacraments 
and  bases  her  whole  religious  life  and  purpose  upon 
sacraments,  gives  very  little  or  no  importance  whatever 


256  THE   PULPIT. 

to  the  pulpit.  For  centuries  she  had  no  pulpit.  They 
are  totally  distinct  elements,  the  devotional  and  the  mor- 
ally intellectual.  The  pulpit  springs  into  being  when- 
ever there  is  an  earthquake  in  society,  whenever  the 
great  intellectual  heavens  are  broken  up,  and  men  be- 
gin to  shape  their  purposes  and  plans  anew.  Whenever 
a  nation  is  passing  through  a  transition  period  in  its 
thought,  then  the  pulpit  springs  into  being  and  special 
value.  The  priesthood  of  Solomon's  Temple  was  one 
thing ;  that  was  a  church.  The  prophets,  Jeremiah  and 
Isaiah,  were  a  totally  distinct  body,  and  they  were  a  pul- 
pit. The  pulpit,  therefore,  you  perceive  by  this  very 
statement,  must  shape  itself  according  to  its  time.  Its 
object  is  not  distinctly  to  educate,  as  we  most  often  use 
that  wTord.  Here  is  the  division  of  the  spheres  of  educa- 
tion. The  theatre  amuses,  the  press  instructs,  the  pul- 
pit improves.  Education  with  the  motive  of  moral  pur- 
pose is  the  essence  of  the  pulpit.  That  element  has 
always  existed.  Let  me  glance  a  moment  at  its  different 
forms,  and  then  come  down  to  ours. 

Among  the  Jews,  what  you  read  in  the  last  half  of  the 
Old  Testament,  that  is  a  pulpit.  It  covered  everything ; 
it  covered  politics,  national  manners,  the  thoughts,  sins, 
and  customs  of  the  day.  Everything  that  made  the  in- 
tellect of  Judea,  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  touched  upon. 
Their  diocese  was  as  broad  as  conscience,  no  matter  how 
broad  those  limits  were.  If  you  went  to  Greece,  Greece 
had  two  instruments  of  education.  She  had  the  theatre, 
and  she  had  the  public  assembly,  like  our  legislature. 
There  being  no  books,  —  that  is,  not  enough  to  need  men- 
tioning, —  and  a  very  small  circle  of  learned  men  in  the 
academy,  the  people  got  what  ideas  they  did  get  from 
the  theatre  on  the  one  side,  and  from  the  orators'  dis- 
cussion of  national  affairs,  on  the  other  ;  and  the  effect 
of  that  method  was,  that  neither  the  one  nor  the  other 


THE   PULPIT.  257 

had  a  distinctly  moral  purpose.  The  theatre  was  amuse- 
ment, was  intellect :  politics  was  success,  no  broader 
than  Athens, — to  make  the  Greek  keep  the  Barbarian 
under  his  feet;  the  means,  war,  —  that  was  the  end  of 
politics.  When  Christianity  came  she  had  to  fight  her 
way  against  the  customs,  the  fashion,  and  the  intellect 
of  Rome.  Instantly  she  leaped  into  the  pulpit,  and  her 
sons  preached.  The  Apostles  preached ;  all  the  early 
ages  preached.  The  last  half  of  the  New  Testament, 
the  letters  of  the  Fathers,  everything  that  has  come  down 
to  us  from  the  first  three  centuries,  is  controversial ;  it 
is  aggressive ;  it  is  an  attempt  to  dislodge  one  idea  and 
plant  another.  It  was  done.  When  it  was  done,  the  age 
went  to  sleep  in  its  hermitage  ;  it  went  to  sleep  in  senti- 
ment, and  the  pulpit  died.  Luther  sprang  into  existence. 
He  wanted  to  wake  the  mind  of  the  people  from  its 
long  dream  of  a  holiness  that  abounded  in  emotions  ;  he 
wanted  to  plant  an  intellectual  vigor  of  thought.  In- 
stantly he  seized  the  pulpit ;  and  during  that  age  the 
pulpit  covered  everything  that  we  call  the  newspaper- 
press,  literature,  politics,  religion.  Luther  wrote  upon 
everything,  he  spoke  upon  everything;  and  so  did  his 
compeers.  There  was  no  question,  public  or  private, 
that  the  pulpit  did  not  deal  with.  That  was  the  secret 
of  its  influence  ;  it  was  a  live  man  speaking  to  men 
alive  on  all  live  questions. 

Now  we  come  down  to  our  day.  We  have  things  that 
call  themselves  pulpits.  And  here  I  want  to  read  you 
my  text.  It  consists  of  an  extract  from  an  apology  of 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Ellis,  of  Charlestown,  for  the  stupidity  of 
the  pulpit.  You  observe  that  a  clergyman  never  steps 
into  an  ordinary  meeting  and  takes  the  platform,  that, 
one  half  the  time  he  does  not  commence  his  remarks  by 
saying,  by  way  of  relief  to  his  audience,  "  I  am  not 
going  to  impose  a  sermon  on  you."  As  if  a  sermon  was 

17 


258  THE   PULPIT. 

the  last  ounce  that  would  break  the  camel's  back.  Now 
I  am  going  to  read  the  remarks  of  one  of  the  ablest  men 
of  the  Unitarian  denomination,  standing  in  what  pro- 
fesses to  be,  and  what  is  the  most  influential  spot  that 
an  intellectual  man  can  occupy  in  our  age,  a  spot  to 
which  men  look  up  with  instinctive  and  passive  rever- 
ence, ready  to  accept  its  tenets  almost  without  examina- 
tion ;  one  whose  vocation  is  to  deal  with  everything  that 
can  stir  the  very  depths  of  our  nature ;  one  who  speaks 
to  us  on  the  themes  that  make  the  blood  tingle,  and 
which  make  life  worth  living ;  an  able  man  in  an  able 
place,  on  the  most  momentous  of  all  themes.  He 
says :  — 

44  It  will  not  do  to  make  the  pulpit  talents  of  the  preacher 
the  main  motive-impulse  of  attraction  to  the  meeting-house  on 
Sunday.  Our  New  England  people,  especially,  have  been  fall- 
ing into  an  error  here,  and  the  interests  of  religious  institutions 
among  us  are  feeling  the  effects  of  it.  The  courses  of  lyceum 
and  miscellaneous  lectures,  which  are  provided  for  annually 
in  our  cities  and  towns,  enlist  the  services  of  a  few  gifted 
men  of  extraordinar}T  popular  talents,  who  seize  upon  fasci- 
nating subjects  and  treat  them  with  a  fantastic  skill,  and  so 
are  listened  to  with  a  lively  interest  by  mixed  and  sometimes 
crowded  audiences.  These  men  —  picked  out  of  the  whole 
mass  of  cultivated,  scholarly,  or  eloquent  writers  and  speak- 
ers in  our  communities  —  have  a  whole  }-ear  for  the  composi- 
tion of  one  of  their  lectures.  The}'  learn  what  is  the  popular 
taste,  and  they  adapt  themselves  to  it,  not  always  trying  or 
helping  to  improve  it  Some  of  their  lectures  are  not  really 
half  so  good  or  sensible  or  instructive  as  ordinary  sermons. 
If  you  were  to  take  them  apart,  you  could  not  put  them 
together  again.  Occasionally  they  are  positively  unwhole- 
some and  mischievous.  But  these  lectures,  such  as  they  are, 
indicate  and  help  to  fix  a  standard  for  public  discourses. 
People  get  the  names  of  a  few  speakers  or  racy  lecturers  on 
their  lips,  and  are  apt  to  judge  of  common  preaching  as  it 


THE   PULPIT.  259 

compares  with  the  lively  talk  and  discursive  essays  of  these 
itinerants.  They  call  preaching  dull  and  commonplace  by 
comparison.  And  so  it  is  ;  just  as  a  corn-field  or  grain-field 
or  potato- field  or  any  other  spread  of  acres  covered  with 
substantial  food  or  fodder  of  daily  life,  is  dull  in  comparison 
with  a  little  garden  patch  of  peonies,  marigold,  and  poppies, 
pinks,  and  coxcombs.  If  some  of  these  tyceum  attendants 
could  only  overhear  the  secret  banter  of  two  or  three  itinerant 
lecturers,  as  to  the  sort  of  stuff  which  takes  with  the  people, 
the  homoeopathic  doses  of  sound  wisdom  and  the  lavish  mix- 
ture of  light  nutriment  which  suits  the  popular  fancy,  perhaps 
such  hearers  might  not  be  flattered  by  the  information. 
No\v,  it  may  as  well  be  confessed  that  the  preacher  of 
weekly  sermons  cannot  treat  the  commonplace  themes  of 
sober  and  homely  truth  so  as  to  tickle  itching  ears.  Alto- 
gether too  much  is  expected  of  preaching  ;  and  that  preaching 
which  many  like  most  to  hear  does  them  the  least  benefit." 

Now,  that  is  half  truth,  and  a  half  truth  often  does  as 
much  harm  as  a  whole  lie.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  you 
cannot  take  a  platform,  and  let  successively  a  dozen  of 
the  ablest  men  in  the  community  occupy  it,  without 
making  it  more  attractive  than  the  same  platform  occu- 
pied continuously  by  one  able  man  ;  but  it  is  not  true 
that  the  lyceum  owes  its  interest  to  the  "  sparkling  talk 
and  lively  rattle "  of  its  lecturers.  It  is  not  true  that 
the  pulpit  may  trace  its  weakness  to  the  "  commonplace 
treatment  of  sober  and  homely  truth."  Let  me  show 
you  this.  The  "  Mercantile  Library  Association "  of 
this  city  for  years  engaged  almost  the  same  men  that  you 
do  to  occupy  the  platform  of  its  lyceum  course.  That 
lyceum  course  is  dead  and  buried  ;  yours  still  lives.  Not 
because  you  have  gotten  better  men,  abler  men,  with 
more  "  sparklfng  talk  and  lively  rattle  "  than  they  have. 
Theodore  Parker  did  not  fill  these  walls  because  of  his  un- 
matched pulpit  talent.  It  was  because  all  that  he  thought, 


260  THE     PULPIT. 

all  that  he  planned,  all  that  he  read,  all  that  he  lived,  he 
brought  here.  All  the  great  topics  that  make  the  court,  the 
street,  the  caucus,  —  life, —  interesting  to  you,  he  brought 
here.  All  that  makes  your  life  a  life  he  brought  here. 

That  is  what  gives  interest  to  this  pulpit.  If  we  go  to 
see  the  androides  —  as  we  used  to  when  we  were  children 
—  which  can  haul  a  wheelbarrow  out,  and  water  a  plot 
of  ground,  and  whip  the  children,  and  strike  the  hour  of 
the  day  on  the  clock,  we  do  nut  go  more  than  once ;  in 
once  we  have  seen  all  that  they  can  do.  The  moment 
the  world  realizes  that  the  pulpit  has  a  limit  which  it 
cannot  pass  ;  that  they  are  not  seeing  a  man  there,  but 
the  puppet  of  something  behind  ;  that  when  you  have 
seen  the  performance  once  or  twice  you  have  gauged  the 
extent,  sounded  the  bottom,  — men  do  not  go  more  than 
twice,  unless  attracted  by  some  rare  rhetorical  gift,  as 
they  crowded  long  ago  to  hear  Everett  read  the  fifteenth 
chapter  of  First  Corinthians  in  Brattle-Street  Church, 
the  same  as  some  hang  night  after  night  on  the  same 
words  from  Kean  or  Rachel ;  unless  they  go  from  the 
motive  of  example,  from  a  sense  of  duty,  from  an  idea 
of  supporting  the  religious  institutions  of  their  times,— 
as  Coleridge,  you  know,  said  he  found,  on  inquiry,  that 
four  fifths  of  the  people  who  attended  his  preaching  at- 
tended from  a  sense  of  duty  to  the  other  fifth. 

Now,  that  is  not  a  pulpit,  in  the  sense  of  being  able  to 
keep  the  mind  of  an  age.  Mark  me,  I  am  not  speaking 
in  any  bitterness  toward  the  pulpit.  I  have  no  more  bit- 
terness than  the  municipality  of  Paris  has  when  it  cuts 
down  an  old  street  in  order  to  make  a  new  thoroughfare. 
My  opinion  is,  that  the  age,  in  order  to  get  all  its  advan- 
tage from  the  pulpit,  needs  a  new  type  of  the  pulpit. 
Look  at  our  life !  The  press,  flooding  us  e"very  day  with 
ideas  ;  the  theatre,  open  to  very  serious  objections,  yet 
sometimes  lifting  the  people  by  addressing  its  love  of 


THE   PULPIT.  261 

amusement,  which  is  a  beautiful,  necessary,  and  useful 
part  of  our  nature ;  on  the  other  side,  government,  ener- 
gizing the  elements  of  popular  life  into  greater  extent  of 
being  than  they  ever  had  before,  by  committing  to  the 
masses  the  great  questions  of  the  age ;  business,  taking 
up  the  four  corners  of  the  globe,  feeding  nations,  chang- 
ing the  current  of  commerce,  supplying  wants,  creating 
wants.  Side  by  side  with  these  stands  an  instrumentality 
of  education  which  does  not  advance  a  whit,  which  does 
not  attempt  to  make  the  life  of  the  nation  its  business. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  said  last  week  in  his  pulpit  that 
the  Antislavery  enterprise  was  not  owing  in  any  degree 
to  the  Church  ;  that  it  had  its  origin,  its  life,  its  strength 
outside  of  the  Church.  What  a  confession  !  You  know 
yourselves,  that  in  regard  to  two  thirds  of  these  pulpits 
in  Boston,  no  man  who  sits  beneath  them  ever  expects 
to  learn,  or  does  learn,  his  duty,  as  a  voter,  for  instance. 
Take  the  single  question  of  the  position  of  woman,  on 
the  result  of  which  hangs  the  moral  condition  of  New 
York.  On  a  law  to  be  passed  by  the  legislature  hangs 
the  right  of  the  laboring  mother  to  the  possession  of  her 
wages ;  out  of  that  grows  the  welfare  of  the  child,  care 
of  its  training,  preservation  of  home,  the  lessening  of 
temptation,  the  drying  up  of  the  great  cancer  of  social 
life.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest,  if  not  the  greatest,  moral 
question  of  our  day.  I  certainly  should  not  exaggerate 
if  I  said  that  a  man  might  attend  ninety-nine  out  of  a 
hundred  pulpits  from  here  to  New  Orleans,  and  he  would 
never  have  his  course  as  a  voter  on  that  question  enlight- 
ened or  directed,  or  have  one  motive  addressed  to  him, 
—  not  one. 

I  might  take  Temperance,  I  might  take  any  other  of 
the  great  social  questions  of  the  day,  and  you  would 
know,  as  I  do,  that  the  last  place  where  a  man  would 
have  his  moral  nature  awakened  and  melted  would  be 


262  THE   PULPIT. 

the  pulpits  of  this  city.  It  is  not  my  business  now 
to  complain  of  them ;  I  am  not  here  to  find  fault  with 
them.  They  do  as  well  as  they  can ;  they  fulfil  their 
contract.  They  exist  for  a  different  purpose.  The  fault 
is  not  in  the  tenant  of  the  pulpit ;  the  fault  is  in  that 
corrupt  sentiment  which  belittles  the  pulpit,  which  sup- 
poses that  it  comes  with  "  homely  and  sober  truth," 
meaning  by  that,  that  it  comes  with  something  that 
everybody  has  heard  a  thousand  times,  and  is  tired  of 
hearing ;  that  it  comes  with  something  that  a  man  sub- 
mits to  hear,  but  has  no  interest  in  hearing.  Of  course 
their  real  and  great  sin  is,  that  while  conscious  of  this 
inherent  slavery  of  their  position,  they  still  pretend  to 
be  independent  in  thought  and  speech,  to  speak  unfet- 
tered, and,  as  some  claim  and  many  believe,  by  exclusive 
right,  for  God. 

I  affirm,  with  no  bitterness  of  spirit,  but  as  an  Amer- 
ican interested  in  the  great  machinery  that  is  to  create 
the  future,  —  I  affirm  that  the  pulpit  of  this  country,  ten- 
anted though  it  is  by  some  of  the  best  educated  and 
some  of  the  ablest  men  in  the  country,  does  not  hold  the 
helm  of  the  intellectual  life  of  America.  It  does  not 
guide  the  thought,  as  it  did  in  the  early  ages  of  New 
England.  It  has  a  momentous  influence,  but  it  is  only 
through  dread  and  awe.  It  has  made  the  masses  afraid 
to  think.  It  has  told  them  that  thought  is  infidelity, 
that  intellectual  activity  is  ruin ;  and  they  look  up  to  it, 
thinking  that  stupidity  is  heaven,  that  chaining  thought 
is  agreeable  to  God,  that  suicide  of  the  mind  is  doing 
honor  to  the  Maker  who  gave  us  mind ;  and  having 
drilled  the  people  into  that  superstition,  the  pulpit  broods 
over  it  like  a  nightmare  ;  but  it  does  not  lead  them. 
There  are  clergymen  who  lead  the  thought  of  their  time, 
but  they  do  not  lead  it  through  the  pulpit,  they  lead  it 
through  the  press,  through  reviews.  Thev  throw  off  the 


THE    PULPIT.  263 

shackles  when  they  get  into  the  Christian  Examiner, 
into  the  North  American  Review,  or  into  any  other  of 
the  channels  of  active  life. 

But  the  sin  of  this  pulpit  is,  that  it  permits  you  to 
think.  Now,  I  value  the  Sunday  for  this,  —  it  is  one  step 
toward  intellect.  The  Devil  invented  work,  —  I  mean 
forced  work.  Heaven  is  leisure.  When  we  clutched  a 
day  and  gave  it  to  the  mind,  we  just  redeemed  one  seventh 
of  the  time  from  the  Devil,  and  gave  it  to  God.  You 
may  use  that  in  two  ways.  You  may  use  it  as  a  mere 
intellectual  instrumentality  ;  but  the  mere  culture  of  the 
intellect  does  not  make  a  man.  Take  a  common  man 
and  teach  him  to  read  ;  lift  him  up  into  intellectual  life, 
as  the  newspaper  does,  as  the  review  does  ;  and  take 
him  in  the  mass,  —  he  will  not  murder,  he  will  not  rob, 
he  will  not  knock  a  man  down  in  the  highway,  the  crimes 
of  violence  will  decrease ;  but  he  will  steal,  he  will  cheat 
on  the  Stock  Exchange.  The  channel  of  the  intellect 
becomes  the  channel  in  which  his  character  and  nature 
move.  Now,  the  world  has  reached  that  point.  The 
press  has  done  its  work  marvellously  well.  Politics  has 
done  its  work  ;  it  has  taken  the  vassal  and  lifted  him  up 
into  a  voter  ;  it  has  taken  the  mere  plodder  in  the  ditch 
and  lifted  him  up  into  a  man  whose  thought  makes  in- 
dustry gainful  and  wealth  more  safe.  So  far  you  have 
done  a  great  deal.  Now  what  you  want  in  addition  is  a 
literature  that  has  a  moral  purpose,  —  that  is,  you  want 
a  pulpit.  In  order  to  that,  it  must  cover  the  whole 
sphere  of  intellectual  life,  —  sanitary  questions,  social 
questions,  health  of  the  body,  marriage,  slavery,  labor, 
the  owning  of  land,  temperance,  the  laws  of  society,  the 
condition  of  woman,  the  nature  of  government,  the  re- 
sponsibility to  law,  the  right  of  a  majority,  how  far  a 
minority  need  to  yield. 

All  these  arc  the  moral  questions  of  our  day,  —  riot 


264  THE    PULPIT. 

metaphysics,  not  dogmas.  Hindostan  settled  these  thou- 
sands of  years  ago.  Christianity  did  not  bury  itself  in 
the  pit  of  Oriental  metaphysics ;  neither  did  it  shroud 
itself  in  the  hermitage  of  Italian  emotion.  The  pulpit 
is  not,  as  seen  in  the  north-west  of  Europe  and  in  this 
country,  a  thing  built  up  of  mahogany  and  paint  and  pray- 
ers. It  is  the  life  of  an  earnest  man ;  it  is  the  example 
of  the  citizen,  the  reformer,  the  thinker,  the  man,  who 
means  to  hold  up,  help,  broaden,  and  unfold  his  brother. 
That  is  a  pulpit ;  and  that  is  the  reason  you  and  I  owe 
it  to  the  community  in  which  we  live  to  perpetuate  such 
a  pulpit  as  this. 

You  observe,  you  cannot  get  the  ultimate  and  entire 
good  from  such  an  institution  when  you  confine  its 
functions  to  a  class,  when  you  set  apart  a  certain 
body  of  men  to  minister  at  it.  In  the  first  place,  that 
is  a  priesthood,  the  esprit  de  corps  instantly  comes 
into  existence,  and  they  begin  to  plot  against  their 
neighbors.  In  the  next  place,  they  cannot  know  life. 
No  one  can  know  life  except  from  suffering.  A  man 
cannot  argue  the  Woman  Question.  Literary  men  never 
do  justice  to  the  wrongs  or  duties  of  women.  We  know 
nothing  of  slavery  ;  we  never  shall  know  it  until  God's 
hand  sweeps  the  strings  of  four  millions  of  broken  hearts, 
and  lets  us  hear  from  the  plantations  of  the  Southern 
half  of  this  nation.  It  is  in  the  protest  of  men  ground 
down  under  some  wrong  principle  that  the  world  learns 
the  depth  and  the  extent  of  right.  It  is  only,  therefore, 
by  putting  into  this  desk  women  as  well  as  men,  all 
races,  all  professions,  that  you  will  sound  the  diapason 
of  man's  moral  and  intellectual  nature.  And  that  is 
what  has  been  done  in  every  great  moving  age. 

The  early  idea  of  Christianity  was  that  of  a  free 
church.  What  is  the  meaning  of  those  directions  in 
ivhich  the  Apostles  said,  "  Let  your  women  keep  silence 


THE    PULPIT.  265 

in  the  churches"?  Do  you  not  see  without  going  into 
the  nature  of  that  command  that  it  is  evident  from  the 
very  prohibition  that  everybody  was  in  the  habit  of  speak- 
ing, men  and  women,  every  one  that  sat  in  the  church  ? 
The  early  Church  was  not  like  the  Catskill  Falls,  where, 
when  you  crawl  up  to  see  them,  a  man  pulls  away  a  board 
and  lets  the  water  down.  It  was  Niagara,  poured  by  God's 
hand  from  a  million  of  voices  and  a  million  of  hearts. 
Everybody  spoke.  The  purposes,  the  wants,  the  thoughts, 
the  hopes  of  every  Christian  man  bubbled  up  to  the  sur- 
face. Now  there  are  practical  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
that.  Our  ideal  is  to  stand  midway.  Men  do  not  go  to 
a  caucus  in  Faneuil  Hall  from  the  idea  of  example.  A 
man  does  not  say  to  his  wife,  "  My  dear,  I  am  going 
down  to  Faneuil  Hall  to-night  in  order  to  hold  up  the 
institutions  of  the  country.  If  I  don't  go,  my  neighbors 
won't  do  their  duty  ;  I  am  sorry  to  waste  the  hour,  but  I 
must  do  it  and  set  a  good  example  to  my  children."  He 
goes,  because  his  heart  is  there  half  an  hour  before  he 
is.  He  goes,  because  he  cannot  stay  away  ;  because 
there  are  live  men  there  who  are  making  his  cradle 
safer ;  who,  with  earnest  blows  on  the  hot  iron  of  the 
present,  are  to  shape  his  future.  He  goes  to  share 
in  the  great  struggle,  and  glow  in  the  electric  confjict. 
You  do  not  need  to  have  societies  to  preach  to  men 
the  duty  of  going  to  Faneuil  Hall.  That  organ  plays 
itself. 

The  real  pulpit  does  not  need  Dr.  Ellis's  apology.  It 
can  hold  its  own  against  the  lyceum.  "  Lively  talk  and 
sparkling  rattle  "  are  not  what  most  deeply  interests  the 
human  heart.  One  earnest  sentence  will  scatter  all  the 
"  lively  rattle "  that  ever  came  from  countless  lyceum 
lecturers.  Thousands  crowd  to  listen  to  the  man  who 
appeals  to  his  fellows,  saying,  "  Brothers,  I  find  great 
suffering,  help  me  to  cure  it ;  I  find  great  darkness, 


266  THE    PULPIT. 

help  me  to  enlighten  it.  I  find  one  half  the  race 
bowed  down  by  injustice  of  which  we  have  never  been 
conscious ;  lift  them  up.  I  seek  a  faithful,  spotless 
church;  let  us  find  or  make  it.  I  see  men  only  half 
conscious  of  the  vice  or  the  injustice  that  herds  them 
with  brutes ;  let  us  inspire  them  with  manhood."  That 
is  a  pulpit.  That  is  what  I  would  have  you  continue 
here.  I  see  that  in  order  to  do  that  it  is  necessary  we 
should  breast  for  a  time  the  prejudice  of  a  community 
which  thinks  that  an  example  like  yours  is  uprooting 
what  are  called,  emphatically  and  particularly,  the  reli- 
gious institutions  of  the  country  ;  but  that  it  seems  to  me 
is  founded  in  this  mistake.  More  than  half  the  world  is 
always  afraid  to  use  the  liberty  God  gives  it.  You  see 
this  want  of  faith  cropping  out  on  all  sides.  One  man 
is  in  favor  of  a  strong  government.  He  wants  somebody 
to  hold  everybody  else.  Why  ?  Because  although  he 
does  not  confess  it,  he  thinks  that  the  world  is  made  up 
of  children.  You  go  into  a  church,  and  somebody  is 
afraid  of  having  all  the  truth  told.  Why  ?  He  cannot 
trust  men  to  hear  it.  Men  are  children.  They  are  to 
be  put  under  guardianship  ;  they  are  to  be  hoodwinked ; 
they  are  not  to  be  trusted  with  the  life  God  gave  them, 
or  all  the  truth  he  shows  to  his  saints. 

In  fact  we  are  exactly  in  this  condition.  One  quarter 
of  the  community  is  awake,  alive  ;  there  is  another  quar- 
ter that  pretends  to  be  awake  ;  and  the  other  half  are 
afraid  of  everybody  that  is  awake.  It  is  just  that  last 
half  which  dreads  the  opening  of  this  hall  on  Sunday. 
They  dread  that  men  should  come  here  and  try  to  lift  up 
the  moral  purpose  of  the  city  of  Boston  on  every  question 
that  can  make  Boston  a  happier,  purer,  better  city  to  live 
in.  They  are  afraid  to  trust  you  with  the  whole  truth 
in  religion  or  in  politics,  even  with  all  they  think  truth. 
I  remember  Theodore  Parker  told  me  that  once  in  a  meet- 


THE   PULPIT.  267 

ing  of  Unitarian  clergymen,  the  head  of  that  sect  lec- 
tured the  assembly  on  the  danger  of  not  believing  in  the 
miracles.  Mr.  Parker  saw  that  the  lesson  was  intended 
for  him,  and  after  saying  so,  he  added,  "  Now  let  me 
ask  you,  Dr. ,  do  you  believe  in  the  miraculous  con- 
ception ? "  A  solemn  silence  followed.  The  priest  re- 
fused to  answer.  "  He  knew,"  continued  Mr.  Parker  to 
me,  "  that  if  he  said  he  did  not,  he  would  show  lie 
had  no  right  to  lecture  me  ;  if  he  said  he  did,  three 
fourths  of  his  audience  would  think  him  a  fool, 
though  all  feared  to  tell  their  people  as  much."  No 
worse  priestcraft  nightmares  Rome.  I  do  not  believe 
that  "  the  whole  of  truth  ever  did  harm  to  the  whole  of 
virtue."  I  believe  that  the  way  God  intends  to  educate 
a  community  is  by  throwing  broadcast  the  truth,  as  far 
as  He  shows  it  to  any  man  living  at  the  time.  There 
may  be  here  and  there  a  single  man  to  whom  it  will  do 
harm ;  but  as  a  general  thing,  in  the  long  result,  in  the 
great  average,  the  seed  falls  on  good  ground,  raises 
higher  the  life,  enlarges  the  thought,  strengthens  the 
virtue,  and  deepens  the  manhood  of  those  who  hear  it. 

I  wish,  therefore,  a  pulpit  like  this,  wholly  unfettered. 
The  reason  why  Dr.  Ellis  has  to  apologize  for  the  pulpit 
is  simply  this.  It  is  a  melancholy  truth,  and  it  is  a 
truth  which  seems  harsh  in  the  saying,  but  it  is  a  true 
saying,  and  it  is  one  necessary  that  somebody  should 
say,  that,  instead  of  being  a  moral  agency,  an  intellectual 
instrumentality  in  one  half  the  New  England  towns,  the 
pulpit  is  merely  an  appendage  to  the  factory.  The  min- 
ister is  just  as  much  employed  to  preach,  as  the  opera- 
tive is  to  tend  the  loom.  The  owner  of  the  works  as 
truly  settles  the  length  of  the  pastor's  tether  as  that 
owner  does  the  amount  of  water  which  it  is  prudent  to 
allow  on  the  dam.  The  extent  of  his  authority,  the 
amount  of  his  freedom,  the  depth  of  his  intellect,  are  all 


268  THE   PULPIT. 

bought  and  paid  for.  There  is  a  class  of  men  who  go 
and  look  up  to  him,  conceiving  that  he  tells  them  all  he 
thinks,  and  for  a  while  they  live  contented.  But  in  fact, 
the  master-hand  of  that  wealth  which  commands  the 
town,  as  much  decides  the  quality  of  the  preaching  on 
Sundays  as  he  does  the  fineness  of  the  cloth  made  week- 
days. It  is  merely  the  jugglery  of  wealth ;  merely  the 
reflection  of  that  same  unlimited  power  that  now, 
through  all  the  avocations  of  life,  seem  so  to  control  us. 
You  know  this  as  well  as  I  do. 

Now,  that  sort  of  pulpit  ought  not  to  have  any  in- 
fluence. It  needs  an  apology.  The  lyceum  is  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  casting  out  its  devil ;  and  it  is  natural  that 
such  a  preacher  should  say  to  the  lyceum  lecturer, 
"  Why  dost  thou  torment  me  before  my  time  ?"  To  the 
dead  body,  you  know,  the  first  movement  of  blood  and 
the  first  element  of  returning  life  is  exquisite  pain ;  so 
to  the  mind  dwarfed  and  fettered  by  such  a  pulpit,  the 
first  entering  of  a  thought  endeavoring,  with  magnetic 
and  electric  circles,  to  new-arrange  society,  is  exquisite 
pain.  Jt  ought  to  be. 

There  is  a  class  of  women  which  is  a  fair  gauge  of  the 
influence  of  this  sort  of  pulpit.  Shut  out  as  women  are 
from  politics,  and  absorbed  as  this  particular  class  is  in 
petty  cares  during  the  week,  the  pulpit  is  all  their  liter- 
ature. Notice  how  narrow  and  timid  is  their  range  of 
thought,  how  borrowed  are  all  their  ideas,  how  real  their 
dread  of  some  sect  or  person  to  whom  or  to  which  the  pas- 
tor has  given  a  bad  name,  how  unaffected  their  anxiety 
when  some  man  of  the  family  breaks  out  into  daring 
difference  with  the  minister !  In  fact,  their  minds  are 
a  blurred  photograph  of  the  dwarfed,  fossil,  shrunken,  and 
stunted  creed  the  priest  has  substituted  for  the  brain 
God  gave  him. 

The  quiet  disdain  with  which  practical  men  receive 


THE   PULPIT.  269 

an  argument  on  any  topic  drawn  from  the  opinions  of 
such  a  pulpit,  shows  the  real  place  it  fills  in  our  great 
national  school.  "  Go  home,"  I  once  heard  a  deacon, 
sixty  years  old,  sitting  as  judge  in  a  criminal  court, 
say  to  a  clergyman  of  his  own  denomination  who  offered 
a  suggestion  as  to  the  amount  of  punishment  proper  for 
a  convict,  — "  Go  home  and  write  your  sermons  ;  we  '11 
take  care  of  the  world."  Such  a  sneer  our  city  pulpits 
have  earned.  As  Cardinal  Wolsey  wrote  to  the  Pope, 
three  centuries  ago,  '*  This  printing  will  give  rise  to 
sects  ;  and  besides  other  dangers,  the  common  people  at 
last  may  come  to  believe  that  there  is  not  so  much  use 
for  a  clergy !  "  They  have  come  to  believe  so.  They  do 
believe  rightly  that  there  's  no  use  in  a  clergy  who  echo 
their  hearers'  prejudices,  mile-stones  indicating  exactly 
how  far  the  old  stage-coach  has  travelled ;  who  eschew 
live  questions :  that  is,  truth  of  importance  to  the  pass- 
ing hour,  lest  taking  sides  on  them  should  injure  their 
influence  on  dead  ones,  —  that  is,  topics  which  felt 
the  hot  blood  of  two  hundred  years  ago,  but  now  are 
as  well  settled  as  gravitation  and  the  cause  of  the  tides; 
priests  who  affect  to  believe  that  their  hearers,  masters 
of  literature,  cannot  safely  bear  the  whole  truth  their 
gigantic  minds  have  discovered,  to  whom  a  stormy  and 
unscrupulous  life  could  pay  the  compliment  that  the 
pew  had  always  been  to  him  a  place  of  repose. 

But  this  is  not  what  our  pulpit  should  be  in  New 
England.  I  do  not  believe  in  a  civilization  which  is  to 
be  a  vassal  to  the  industrial  energy  of  society.  I  do  not 
believe  that  our  nature  and  race  have  fallen  so  low  that 
wealth  really  will  canker  the  whole  of  it.  A  pulpit 
representing  moral  energy,  announcing  its  purpose  to 
deal  with  each  question  as  it  arises,  to  trust  the  popular 
conscience,  and  say,  "  If  God  gave  you  that,  take  it ;  it  is 
no  responsibility  of  mine ;  "  such  a  pulpit  will  put  wealth 


270  THE   PULPIT. 

where  it  belongs,  under  its  feet.  It  was  to  such  a  pulpit 
the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  went  two  centuries 
ago  on  every  great  political  question,  and  sat  at  its  feet. 
Why  the  time  was  when  the  government  and  the  House 
of  Representatives  in  this  very  colony,  requested  the 
clergymen  to  assemble  on  a  great  political  crisis  in  the 
city  of  Boston,  and  tell  them  what  to  do.  "  Political 
preaching,"  forsooth  !  Then  the  pulpit  was  broad  enough 
to  cover  the  whole  intellectual  and  moral  life  of  the  peo- 
ple. It  went  exactly  as  far  as  conscience  goes,  and 
therefore  it  lived.  That  is  what  you  have  done  here, 
nothing  more. 

The  ordinary  pulpit  is  completely  described  by  the 
angry  parishioner  who  told  John  Pier'pont  that  he  was 
u  employed  to  preach  Unitarianism,  not  Temperance." 
Our  idea  of  a  pulpit  is,  that  wherever  a  moral  purpose 
dictates  earnest  words  to  make  our  neighbor  a  better 
man  and  better  citizen,  to  clear  the  clogged  channels  of 
life,  to  lift  it  to  a  higher  level  or  form  it  on  a  better  model, 
there  is  a  pulpit.  Such  a  pulpit  as  this  is  perfectly  con- 
sistent with  the  most  Orthodox  creed.  It  may  have 
baptism  and  the  sacrament ;  it  may  have  seven  sacra- 
ments, if  it  chooses.  This  desk  has  nothing  to  do  with 
ecclesiasticism.  It  is  a  mere  accidental  adjunct  of  Sunday. 
It  is  only  something  which  the  mind  of  Protestantism 
seized  upon  as  the  most  convenient  instrumentality,  and 
it  showed  essential  good  sense  in  seizing  it.  The  news- 
paper cannot  rebuke  its  customer ;  the  writer  of  a  book 
wants  it  to  sell ;  the  man  who  devotes  himself  to  preach- 
ing knows  that  he  has  a  family  growing  up  about  him, 
and  is  naturally  tempted  to  preach  pleasant  things,  and 
not  true  things,  for  he  cannot  afford  to  starve.  It  is  no 
fault  of  his.  You  cannot  starve  ;  and  you  have  no  right 
to  ask  of  him  what  you  cannot  do.  But  if  you  say, 
"  Welcome  any  man  to  this  pulpit  who  has  a  new  idea 


THE   PULPIT.  271 

to  give  us,  a  new  moral  plan  to  propose  to  us,  a  better 
way  to  suggest,  a  sin  to  rebuke,  a  nation  to  create,  a 
statute-book  to  tear  asunder,  a  corrupt  custom  to  assail," 
—  you  get  at  least  one  of  the  elements  of  pulpit  usefulness, 
Independence.  The  other  is,  Capacity. 

What  is  this  desk  ?  There  is  no  mystery  in  it.  You 
want  thought,  growing  out  of  moral  purpose,  and  a  man 
who  dares  to  speak  it ;  and  then  you  have  a  pul- 
pit. But  you  take  an  able  man  from  Harvard  College, 
with  five  languages  and  three  philosophies,  and  tell  him : 
"  Teach  Unitarianism  ;  if  you  teach  us  anything  else, 
go  !  Read  the  Bible,  teach  from  it,  preach  from  it ;  but 
beware  lest  you  find  anything  in  it  that  the  Christian 
Examiner  does  not  approve !  "  Of  what  use  listening 
to  the  preaching  of  such  a  man  ?  You  have  contracted 
beforehand  that  he  shall  tell  you  nothing  you  do  not 
already  know. 

I  alluded  to  the  fact  that  the  clergy  have  education. 
They  know  enough.  They  have  the  culture  of  all  ages 
garnered  in  those  brains  of  theirs.  The  only  diffi- 
culty is  the  habitual  caution  which  treads  on  eggs 
without  breaking  the  shells.  In  the  very  last  Christian 
Examiner,  —  the  representative  of  the  freest  of  all  the 
sects,  and  perhaps  I  should  do  no  injustice  to  the  others 
if  I  were  to  say  that  it  represents  the  widest  culture  of  all 
the  sects,  —  there  is  an  article  on  Woman's  Rights.  It 
cannot  afford  to  do  justice  to  the  scarred  and  able-headed 
pioneers  who,  sacrificing  themselves  to  public  ridicule 
and  disgust,  have  made  with  their  bodies  the  firm  ground 
upon  which  the  writer  treads,  and  have  given  him  ideas 
and  the  courage  to  utter  them ;  but  it  is  obliged  to  say 
that  it  sees  no  use  in  Woman's  Rights  Conventions  and 
outside  agitation,  etc.  To  be  sure  not,  except  to  supply 
those  pages  to  which  timid  respectability  looks  up,  sure 
that  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  have  already  believed 


272  THE    PULPIT. 

whatever  it  finds  written  there,  —  except  to  supply  such 
pages  with  brains  and  heart. 

Now,  you  wanted  that  writer  in  his  own  pulpit,  ten 
years  ago,  to  do  from  the  height  of  a  revered,  trusted, 
loved  pulpit  that  which  "  like  a  thunder-storm  against 
the  breeze,"  men  of  no  repute  and  of  few  opportunities, 
and  in  small  audiences  have  been  doing  for  ten  years. 
To  be  sure,  his  idea  that  agitation  was  needless  is  like 
the  clown  in  the  old  classic  play  two  thousand  years 
ago,  who,  seeing  a  man  bring  down  with  an  arrow  an 
eagle  floating  in  the  blue  ether  above,  said,  "  You  need 
not  have  wasted  that  arrow,  the  fall  would  have  killed 
him." 

And  we  shall  certainly  succeed.  Here  we  are  out- 
voted ;  here  we  are  fanatics  ;  and  here  we  are  persecuted. 
But  persecution  is  only  want  of  faith.  When  a  man 
does  not  believe  what  he  says  he  does,  he  persecutes  the 
man  who  contradicts  him  ;  when  he  does  believe  it,  he 
sits  quiet.  But  all  the  great  thinkers,  all  the  broad 
minds  of  Europe,  are  on  our  side.  Just  now  two  names 
occur  to  me,  Stuart  Mill  and  Herbert  Spencer,  —  per- 
haps two  of  the  largest  brains  in  Europe,  two  of  the 
profoundest  thinkers,  and  yet  from  their  works  I  could 
cull  sentence  after  sentence  that  would  indorse  every 
sentiment  you  would  hear  in  a  twelvemonth  from  this 
pulpit,  organized  as  I  have  sketched  it.  The  thinkers 
and  the  doers,  the  men  that  stand  close  to  the  popular 
heart,  and  the  men  sitting  still  and  calm  in  the  Aca- 
demy, agree.  The  upper  and  the  nether  mill-stone  have 
said,  "  Let  it  come  to  pass  !  "  and  we  shall  grind  up  con- 
servatism between  us.  The  craving  of  the  popular 
mind  for  truth,  the  opening  in  America  for  a  wider  in- 
tellectual and  moral  battle,  taking  into  its  bosom  the 
seed  which  the  Master  who  bestows  thought  is  ready 
to  plant,  —  between  us  two,  we  shall  make  in  this  very 


THE   PULPIT.  273 

community  in  which  we  live,  long  before  the  middle- 
aged  of  us  are  in  our  graves,  those  dead  desks  vocal 
with  what  the  people  need.  If  not  for  their  own  pur- 
poses, then  in  self-defence,  to  save  their  own  ground 
which  we  are  clutching  from  them,  they  shall  preach 
upon  everything.  We  will  so  affirm  upon  all  possible 
questions  that  they  shall  at  least  deny,  and  out  of  that 
affirmation  and  denial  will  come  discussion  and  agita- 
tion, which  make  the  worth  of  the  pulpit. 

Theodore  Parker's  life  is  funded  in  Ids  books,  his  ex- 
ample, and  this  pulpit  his  creation.  I  beseech  you,  there- 
fore, if  your  life  enables  you  to  do  anything  for  the  very 
best  interests  of  this  community,  see  to  it  that  by  every 
effort  in  your  power,  not  merely  out  of  grateful,  affec- 
tionate memory  of  one  whose  life  is  imaged  in  the  insti- 
tution which  consecrates  this  roof  every  Sunday,  not  out 
of  mere  love  for  the  only  child  that  Theodore  Parker  has 
left  to  our  guardianship,  but  out  of  the  broader  motive  of 
setting  an  example  for  the  United  States  ;  of  shaming  the 
pulpit  into  independence ;  of  holding  up  in  weaker  com- 
munities, by  the  grandeur  and  respectability  of  your  ex- 
ample, similar  institutions  to  this ;  of  making  the  pulpit 
both  caucus  and  newspaper,  literature  and  college,  Bible 
and  moral  purpose,  to  the  millions  who  are  asking  its  guid- 
ance, —  perpetuate  this  pulpit  here,  under  the  beneficial 
and  beneficent  influence  of  a  meeting,  stated,  always  to 
be  found,  gathering  strength  every  hour  that  it  lives,  sub- 
duing the  community  into  respect.  Give  us  a  spot  where 
every  new  idea  of  New  England  can  announce  itself  from 
this  place  to  the  Mississippi.  I  would  rather  every  other 
pulpit  in  Boston  should  die  out  than  this.  I  should  deem 
that  we  had  lost  one  of  the  largest  waves  on  the  shore,  if 
we  lost  such  an  institution  as  this.  We  have  conquered 
a  peace.  To  the  farthest  West  this  pulpit  is  quoted.  The 
man  who  sighs  under  some  unwonted  oppression  on  the 

18 


274  THE    PULPIT. 

shores  of  the  great  lakes,  on  the  other  side  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line,  thinks  of  this  free  hall  in  Boston,  and 
thanks  God  that  he  lias  an  advocate.  Every  unpopular 
truth  remembers  you,  and  takes  courage ;  and  the  time 
will  come  when  the  dwarfed  souls  in  these  other  build- 
ings, who  look  up  and  are  not  fed,  who  dare  not  think, 
who  dread  their  own  intellect  as  a  sin,  will  come  to  you 
and  learn  to  live. 

Whenever  brutal  prejudice  tramples  on  right,  here 
shall  it  find  fitting  rebuke.  Whenever  law,  masking 
tyranny,  drives  weak  men  and  wicked  to  some  damned 
deed,  here  shall  they  see  held  up  fearlessly  their  hideous 
image.  When  great  interests  clashing  in  a  storm  make 
stout  hearts  quail,  and  startled  routine  rushes  blindly 
to  some  infamous  submission,  bartering  right  for  safety; 
while  all  other  desks  are  silent,  and  the  vassal  press 
gives  no  certain  sound,  —  here  shall  the  truth,  the  utter 
truth,  rebuke  low  interest  to  its  right  place,  lash  the  sin 
plated  with  gold,  and  plead  the  cause  of  justice  against 
cruel  and  selfish  gain.  Against  slave-hunters  and  mobs, 
against  bigots  and  time-servers,  against  cravens  and 
priests,  against  things  wicked,  only  borne  because  old, 
against  fashionable  sins  and  profitable  errors,  we  pro- 
claim war.  How  necessary  that  the  trade  or  bigot  rid- 
den city,  in  some  hour  of  forced  abasement,  when  honest 
hearts  swell,  silent  but  indignant,  should  feel,  "Music 
Hall  will  file  a  true  record  and  utter  the  fitting  word." 
This  is  our  Faneuil  Hall,  now  that  patriotism  means 
plunder ;  this  is  our  college,  now  that  only  what  is  old 
and  Greek  is  deemed  true  or  safe. 

The  canvass  of  the  last  three  months,  how  valuable  it 
is  !  You  are  a  canvass  every  seventh  day,  and  on  a 
higher  standpoint,  with  no  necessity  to  pander  to  the 
prejudices  or  evils  of  the  time.  God's  unalloyed  truth 
from  every  lip,  welcome  it !  A  church  without  a  creed, 


THE   PULPIT.  275 

a  constant  rotation  of  sects  to  speak  to  you,  the  moral 
purpose  of  the  whole  Union  at  your  service,  if  you  gain 
nothing  else  from  it,  brothers. 

I  think  it  was  a  Unitarian  critic,  a  member  of  a  church 
whose  right  to  the  name  of  u  church  "  every  other  sect 
denies,  that  said  of  you,  "  Theodore  Parker  did  not  leave 
a  church,  he  only  left  a  '  Fraternity.'  "  The  great  Master 
said, "  One  is  your  Master,  and  all  ye  are  brethren."  I  do 
not  know  what  better  name  could  be  taken  by  His  fol- 
lowers than  "  Fraternity." 

If  you  gain  nothing  else  from  your  pulpit,  you  will 
gain  this,  —  courage.  You  will  unfold  in  your  natures 
a  courage  to  listen  to  every  man.  You  will  be  able  to  say 
to  yourselves,  "  I  know  I  am  right,  I  know  why  I  am 
right,  and  I  dare  to  listen  to  the  best  that  any  man  can 
say  against  me,"  —  and  that  is  the  corner-stone  of  char- 
acter, which  is  better  than  intellect ;  that  is  the  corner- 
stone of  manhood,  which  is  next  to  Godhood,  and  the 
nearest  that  we  can  come  to  it. 


CHRISTIANITY  A  BATTLE,  NOT  A 
DREAM. 


A  discourse  at  the  thirteenth  Sunday  afternoon  meeting,  Horticul- 
tural Hall,  Boston,  April  11,  1869. 

TO  tell  the  truth,  the  subject  is  one  not  very  familiar 
to  my  beaten  path  of  thought,  and  I  am  present 
rather  at  the  urgency  of  the  Committee  to  take  a  share 
in  the  discussion  of  the  topics  for  which  the  doors  were 
opened,  than  from  any  earnest  wish  of  my  own.  But 
still  I  should  be  ashamed  to  say,  after  having  lived 
thirty  years  of  active  life  in  a  community  stirred  as 
ours  has  been,  that  I  have  not  some  suggestions  to  offer 
on  a  topic  so  vital  as  the  one  which  1  have  named. 
Every  man  who  has  lived  thoughtfully  in  the  midst  of 
the  great  issues  that  have  been  struggling  for  attention 
and  settlement ;  every  man  who  has  striven  to  rouse  to 
action  the  elemental  forces  of  society  and  civilization1 
which  ought  to  grapple  with  these  problems,  —  must  have 
had  his  thoughts  turned  often,  constantly,  to  the  nature  of 
Christianity  itself,  and  to  the  part  which  it  ought  to 
claim,  to  the  place  which  it  really  occupies,  amid  the 
great  elements  which  are  to  mould  our  future. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  Christianity  as  the 
mere  reflection  of  the  morals  and  intellect  of  the  -passing 
age  ;  as  something  which  may  be  made  to  take  any  form, 
assume  any  principle,  direct  itself  against  any  point,  at 
the  bidding  of  the  spirit  of  its  individual  age.  It  is 


CHRISTIANITY   A    BATTLE,   NOT   A    DREAM.  277 

looked  upon  as  an  ephemeral  result,  not  as  a  perma- 
nent cause;  and  when  viewed  as  such,  men  very  natu- 
rally class  it  with  the  other  religions  of  the  world,  which 
have  all  been  results,  not  causes,  —  effects,  not  sources 
of  action.  As  I  look  at  Christianity  in  its  relation  to 
absolute  religion, —  religion  the  science  of  duty  to  our- 
selves, to  our  fellows,  and  to  God,  —  as  I  look  at  Chris- 
tianity in  reference  to  religion,  I  want  to  say  at  the  out- 
set that  it,  for  me,  occupies  an  entirely  distinct  place, 
an  entirely  different  level  from  any  other  of  what  are 
called  or  have  been  the  religions  of  the  world. 

If  you  go  to  the  East,  for  the  last  three  thousand 
years  you  find  a  religion  the  reflection  of  its  civilization, 
the  outgrowth  of  its  thought,  steeped  in  its  animal  life, 
dragged  down  by  all  its  animal  temptations,  rotted 
through  with  license,  with  cruelty,  — with  all  that  grows 
out  of  the  abnormal  relation  of  the  body  to  the  soul.  And 
the  only  distinctive  element  in  this  outburst  of  Hindoo 
religions,  —  Buddha  and  Brahma  too,  —  the  only  redeem- 
ing point  is  a  sort  of  exceptional  intellectual  life,  which 
busied  itself  exclusively  with  the  future ;  which  strug- 
gled to  plan  and  shape  life,  and  mould  it  on  the  princi- 
ple that  to  be  like  God,  you  were  to  trample  out  all 
human  affection  and  interests,  thought,  duties,  and 
relations  ;  and  the  moment  you  became  utterly  passion- 
less, without  thought,  without  interest  in  aught  external, 
you  were  godlike,  —  absorbed  into  the  Infinite  and  ready 
for  the  hereafter. 

The  only  thing  remarkable  in  these  Asiatic  religions 
is  that  they  were  infinitely  below  the  popular  level  of 
morality  and  intelligence,  while  intellectually  they  busied 
themselves  with  nothing  but  the  future  state  ;  not  in  one 
single  thought  or  effort  or  plan  or  method  with  man 
as  God  places  him  on  the  surface  of  this  planet.  And 
it  was  a  religion  so  much  the  actual  result  of  the  moral 


278  CHRISTIANITY    A    BATTLE,    NOT    A    DREAM. 

and  intellectual  life,  so  moonlike  a  reflection,  that  in 
due  time,  after  a  century  or  two,  society  in  Hindostan 
was  infinitely  better  than  its  religion.  I  know,  of  course, 
of  the  bright  gems  of  thought  that  glisten  here  and  there 
on  their  sacred  pages,  —  original,  perhaps  ;  interpolated 
nobody  can  say  when,  possibly ;  but,  whether  so  or  not, 
exceptions  to  the  broad,  popular  estimate  of  the  religion  of 
the  age.  That  was  in  itself  so  weak,  so  poor,  so  immoral, 
so  degraded,  so  animal,  that  any  social  system  in  Hindo- 
stan which  had  not  been  better  than  its  gods,  would  have 
rotted  out  from  inherent  corruption.  I  repudiate  utterly 
and  indignantly  the  supposition  that  in  any  sense  Chris- 
tianity is  to  be  grouped  with  the  religious  demonstra- 
tions of  Asia. 

If  you  cross  the  Straits  and  come  to  the  fair  humani- 
ties of  ancient  Greece,  to  the  classic  mythology  which 
gave  us  the  civilization  of  Greece,  the  same  general 
truth  obtains.  The  mythology  of  the  age  was  so  liter- 
ally and  utterly  a  mere  reflex  of  its  earliest  civilization, 
that  the  finest  specimens  of  human  life  find  no  prototype 
at  all  in  the  religion  of  the  classic  epochs.  Where  in 
the  Greek  mythology  do  you  find  any  prototype  for  the 
nobleness  of  Socrates  or  the  integrity  of  Cato  ?  If 
Athens  and  Rome  had  not  been  far  better  than  Olympus, 
neither  empire  would  have  survived  long  enough  to  have 
given  us  Phocion,  Demosthenes,  or  Cato. 

Religion  is  the  soul  of  which  society  and  civil  polity 
are  the  body,  and  when  you  bring  forward  the  excep- 
tional lives  of  thoughtful  men,  living  either  in  Greece 
or  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges,  as  a  measure  of  the 
religion  of  their  age  and  country,  I  reject  it ;  for  I  go 
out  into  the  streets  of  both  continents  to  ask  what  is 
the  broad  result  —  grouping  a  dozen  centuries  together  — 
of  the  great  religious  force  which  always,  in  some  form 
or  other,  underlies  every  social  development ;  and  when 


CHRISTIANITY   A    BATTLE,    NOT    A    DREAM.  279 

I  seek  it  either  in  Greece  or  Asia  or  Mahomet,  I  find  a 
civilization  of  caste,  exclusively  a  civilization  of  animal 
supremacy,  —  a  civilization  in  itself  natural,  not  wholly 
useless,  but  superficial,  grovelling,  and  short-lived. 

In  a  world  covered  over  with  this  religious  experience, 
out  of  a  world  lying  in  murky  ignorance,  except  where 
one  or  two  points  like  Athens  and  some  old  cities  of 
Asia  towered  out  of  it  by  an  intellectual  life,  all  at  once 
there  started  up  a  system  which  we  call  Christianity;  the 
outgrowth  of  the  narrowest,  and,  as  the  world  supposed, 
the  most  degraded  tribe  of  human  beings  that  occupied 
its  surface.  I  am  not  going  to  touch  on  its  doctrines, 
because  I  do  not  believe  that  it  has  many  doctrines.  1 
do  not  believe  that  out  of  the  New  Testament  you  can, 
by  any  torture  of  ingenuity,  make  a  creed.  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  New  Testament  intended  that  you 
should  make  a  creed.  The  sneer  of  the  infidel  is  that 
you  may  get  anything  out  of  the  New  Testament.  It 
is  like  the  napkin  in  the  hands  of  a  juggler.  It  can  be 
made  to  assume  many  shapes,  —  church-towers,  rabbit's- 
head,  baby's-cradle,  —  but  it  is  a  napkin  still.  When  you 
torture  the  New  Testament  into  Calvinism  or  Roman- 
ism or  Catholicism  or  Universalism  or  Unitarianism,  it  is 
nothing  but  the  New  Testament  after  all. 

There  are  certain  great  principles  inherent  in  Chris- 
tianity, as  a  religious  and  an  intellectual  movement,  that 
distinguish  it  from  all  others,  judging  in  two  ways,  — 
either  by  the  fair  current  of  its  records  or  by  the  fruit  of 
its  existence.  There  are  two  ways  of  judging  Christian- 
ity,—  one  to  open  its  records,  and  the  other  tojrace  Eu- 
rope and  its  hUtory  under  the  influence  of  Christianity. 

I  wish  to  call  attention  to  two  or  three  principles  of 
Christianity  which  are  not  included  in  any  other  reli- 
gious system,  and  the  first  is  the  principle  of  sacrifice. 
"  Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens  "  is  the  cardinal  prin- 


280  CHRISTIANITY    A    BATTLE,   NOT    A    DREAM. 

ciple  that  underlies  Christianity.  All  other  religions 
allow  that  the  strong  have  the  right  to  use  the  weak. 
Like  Darwin's  principle  of  philosophy,  the  best,  the 
strongest,  the  educated,  the  powerful,  have  the  right  to 
have  the  world  to  themselves,  and  to  absorb  the  less 
privileged  in  their  enjoyable  career.  Carlyle  represents 
that  element  in  modern  literature.  Christianity  ignores 
it  in  its  central  principle.  Wealth,  health,  and  knowl- 
edge are  a  trust.  "  If  any  man  be  chief  among  you,  let 
1  x ,  him  be  your  servant."  If  you  know  anything,  commum^ 
k  .^  cate  it.  Whatever  you  hold,  it  is  not  yours.  See  that 
you  make  yourself  the  servant  of  the  weakness  of 
your  age. 

God  in  his  Providence,  to  which  Christ  gave  us  the 
key,  is  the  mover  of  the  ages,  has  always  been  dragging 
down  the  great,  and  lifting  up  the  poor ;  and  Christian- 
ity was  the  first  testimony  of  religion  which  recognized 
the  decree  of  Providence,  that  the  greater  is  the  servant 
of  the  lesser. 

Again,  Christianity  endeavors  to  reform  the  world  by 
ideas.  There  is  not  such  another  attempt  in  the  history 
of  the  race.  There  is  nowhere  a  single  religious  leader 
that  ever  said,  "  I  will  remodel  the  world,  and  I  will 
remodel  it  by  thought."  Christianity  not  only  trusts 
itself  to  the  mind,  to  the  supremacy  of  the  soul,  but  it  is 
aggressive  on  that  line.  It  not  only  says,  with  every 
thoughtful  man,  the  mind  is  stronger  than  the  body, 
but  the  Saviour  says,  u  Go  out  and  preach  the  Gospel  to 
every  creature."  The  great  AGITATOR  of  the  centuries  is 
Jesus  Christ  of  Jerusalem,  who  undertook  to  found  his 
power  on  an  idea,  and  at  the  same  time  to  announce  his 
faith  and  to  teach  his  disciples,  "  this  idea  shall  remould 
the  world."  No  other  religion  has  attempted  it ;  no 
other  religious  leader  has  proclaimed  any  such  purpose, 
plan,  or  faith. 


NOT    A    DREAM.  281 

Christianity  has  another  element  that  distinguishes 
it  from  all  religions.  It  does  not  appeal  to  education  ;  it 
does  not  appeal  to  caste ;  it  does  not  appeal  to  culture 
and  the  disciplined  mind,  —  in  that  century  or  in  any 
other.  To  the  poor  the  Gospel  is  preached.  Chris- 
tianity did  not  condescend  to  the  lowest  ignorance ;  it 
selected  the  lowest  ignorance  as  the  depositary  of  its 
trust.  Some  one  has  said,  "  Christianity  is  the  highest 
wisdom  condescending  to  the  lowest  ignorance."  That 
is  an  insufficient  statement.  Christ  intrusted  his  gospel 
to  the  poor,  to  the  common-sense  of  the  race,  to  the 
instincts  of  human  nature.  He  turned  away  from  San- 
hedrim and  school ;  from  Pharisee,  who  was  observance, 
and  Sadducee,  who  was  sceptical  inquiry, —  and  called 
to  his  side  the  unlearned  ;  planted  the  seeds  of  his 
empire  in  the  masses^  no  caste,  no  college,  no  "  inside  " 
clique  of  adepts,  and  no  " outside"  herd  of  dupes.  Christ 
proclaimed  spiritual  equality  and  brotherhood. 

You  see  in  the  Bible  that  the  Saviour  was  considered 
a  babbler,  a  disorganizer,  a  pestilent  fellow,  a  stirrer-up 
of  sedition.  All  the  names  that  have  been  bestowed  on 
men  that  ever- came  to  turn  the  world  upside  down  were 
heaped  upon  that  leader  of  Christianity  in  the  streets 
of  Jerusalem.  If  he  should  come  to-day  into.tftese 
streets,  as  he  stood  up  in  the  corners  of  the  streets  of 
Jerusalem  and  arraigned  tfce  Cfiurch  and  State  of  his 
day,  he  would  be  denied  and  crucified  exactly  as  he  was 
in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  eighteen  hundred  years  ago. 

This  is  a  most  singular  and  unique  characteristic  of 
Christianity.  It  did  not  affect  the  schools ;  it  did  not 
ask  the  indorsement  of  the  Academy  of  Plato ;  rtjvent 
to  the  people ;  it  trusted  the  human  race.  It  said, 
"  I  am  as  immortal  as  man.  I  accept  human  nature, 
and  the  evidence  of  my  divinity  will  be  that  every  suc- 
cessive development  of  a  fact  of  human  nature  will  come 


282  CHRISTIANITY   A    BATTLE,   NOT   A    DREAM. 

back  here  and  find  its  key."  Christianity  says,  "  I  leave 
my  record  with  the  instincts  of  the  race.  The  accu- 
mulating evidence  of  my  divine  mission  shall  be  that 
nowhere  can  the  race  travel,  under  no  climate,  in  the 
midst  of  no  circumstances,  can  it  develop  anything  of 
which  I  have  not  offered  beforehand  the  explanation 
and  the  key." 

The  fourth  element  peculiar  to  Christianity  is  its  ideal 
of  woman.  In  all  civilization  as  in  every  individual 
case,  in  all  times  as  well  as  in  all  men,  this  rule  holds  : 
The  level  of  a  man's  spiritual  life,  and  the  spiritual  life 
of  an  age,  is  exactly  this,  —  its  ideal  of  woman.  No 
matter  where  you  test  society,  what  its  intellectual  or 
moral  development,  the  idea  that  it  has  held  of  woman 
is  the  measure  and  test  of  the  progress  it  has  made. 
The  black  woman  in  the  South  holds  in  her  hands  to-day 
the  social  reconstruction  of  half  the  Union.  The  black 
man  of  the  South  holds  its  material  and  industrial  future  ; 
its  spiritual  and  moral  possibility  lies  in  the  place  which 
woman  shall  compel  her  fellow-beings  to  accord  her  in 
their  ideas  in  the  future.  So,  wherever  you  go,  into  Asia 
or  Greece,  the  idea  that  each  religion  held  of  woman  is 
a  test  of  its  absolute  spiritual  truth  and  life.  Chris- 
tianity is  the  only  religion  that  ever  accorded  to  woman 
her  true  place  in  the  Providence  of  God.  It  is  excep- 
tional ;  it  is  antagonistic  to  the  whole  spirit  of  the  age. 
The  elements  I  have  named  are  those  which  distinguish 
Christianity. 

Is  Christianity  an  inspired  faith  or  not  ?  Shakspeare 
and  Plato  tower  above  the  intellectual  level  of  their 
times  like  the  peaks  of  Teneriffe  and  Mont  Blanc. 
We  look  at  them,  and  it  seems  impossible  to  measure 
the  interval  that  separates  them  from  the  intellectual 
development  around  them.  But  if  this  Jewish  boy  in 
that  era  of  the  world,  in  Palestine,  with  the  Ganges  on 


CHRISTIANITY   A    BATTLE,    NOT   A    DREAM.  283 

one  side  of  him  and  the  Olympus  of  Athens  on  the 
other,  ever  produced  a  religion  with  these  four  elements, 
he  towers  so  far  above  Shakspeare  and  Plato  that  the 
difference  hetween  Shakspeare  and  Plato  and  their 
times,  in  the  comparison,  becomes  an  imperceptible 
wrinkle  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  I  think  it  a  greater 
credulity  to  believe  that  there  ever  was  a  man  so  much 
superior  to  Athens  and  to  England  as  this  Jewish  youth 
was,  if  he  was  a  mere  man,  than  it  is  to  believe  that 
in  the  fulness  of  time  a  higher  wisdom  than  was  ever 
vouchsafed  to  a  human  being  undertook  to  tell  the 
human  race  the  secret  by  which  it  could  lift  itself  to 
a  higher  plane  of  moral  and  intellectual  existence. 

I  have  weighed  Christianity  as  the  great  and  vital  and 
elemental  force  which  underlies  Europe,  —  to  which  we 
are  indebted  for  European  civilization.  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  measure  its  strength,  to  estimate  its  permanence, 
to  analyze  its  elements ;  and  if  they  ever  came  from  the 
unassisted  brain  of  one  uneducated  Jew,  while  Shaks- 
peare is  admirable,  and  Plato  is  admirable,  and  Goethe 
is  admirable,  this  Jewish  boy  takes  a  higher  level ;  he  is 
marvellous,  wonderful ;  he^is  in  himself  a  miracle.  The 
miracles  he  wrought  are  nothing  to  the  miracle  he  was, 
if  at  that  era  and  that  condition  of  the  world  he  in- 
vented Christianity.  Whately  says,  "  To  disbelieve  is 
to  believe."  I^cannot^  be  so  credulous  as  to  believe  that 
any  mere  man  invented  Christianity.  Until  you  show 
me  some  loving  heart  that  has  felt  more  profoundly, 
some  strong  brain  that,  even  with  the  aid  of  his  example, 
has  thought  further  and  added  something  to  religion, 
I  must  still  use  my  common-sense  and  say,  No  man  did 
all  this.  I  know  Buddha's  protest,  and  what  he  is  said 
to  have  tried  to  do.  To  all  that  my  answer  is,  India 
past  and  present.  In  testing  ideas  and  elemental  forces, 
if  you  give  them  centuries  to  work  in,  success  is  the  only 


284  CHRISTIANITY   A    BATTLE,    NOT    A    DREAM. 

criterion.     "  By  their  fruits "  is  an  inspired  rule,  not 
yet  half  understood  and  appreciated. 

Our  religion  was  never  yet  at  peace  with  its  age. 
Ours  is  the  only  faith  whose  first  teacher  and  eleven 
out  of  his  twelve  original  disciples  died  martyrs  to  their 
ideas.  There  is  no  other  faith  whose  first  teacher 
was  not  cherished  and  deified.  The  proof  that  some 
mighty  power  took  possession  of  this  Jewish  mind, 
and  lifted  it  up  above,  and  flung  it  against  its  age, 
is  that  he  himself  and  eleven  of  his  twelve  first  dis- 
ciples forfeited,  to  the  age,  their  lives  for  the  message 
they  brought. 

I  put  aside  all  the  tenets  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
—  the  fatherhood  of  God,  the  brotherhood  of  man;  all 
the  gleams  which  the  noblest  intellects  of  the  classic 
and  Asiatic  world  undoubtedly  had  of  the  truth.  That 
is  not  it.  A  man  who  says  that  Christianity  is  but  the 
outgrowth  of  a  human  intellect  must  explain  to  me 
Europe  as  she  stands  to-day,  —  the  intelligence,  morality, 
and  civilization  of  Europe  as  compared  with  the  Asiatic 
civilization  which  has  died  out.  Asiatic  civilization 
failed  from  no  lack  of  intellectual  vigor  or  development. 
Tocqueville  shows  us  that  all  the  social  problems  and 
questions  that  agitate  Europe  and  America  to-day  were 
debated  to  rags  in  Hindostan  ages  ago.  Every  one 
knows  that  Saracen  Spain  outshone  all  the  rest  of 
Europe  for  three  or  four  centuries.  The  force  wanting 
was  a  spiritual  one.  Body  and  brain,  without  soul,  Asia 
rotted  away.  From  Confucius  to  Cicero  there  is  light 
enough  but  no  heat. 

If  this  is  the  essence  of  Christianity,  what  is  our  duty 
in  view  of  it  ?  A  large  proportion  of  the  men  who  dis- 
cuss radical  religion,  as  well  as  Orthodox  religionists, 
mistake  the  essence  of  Christianity  for  speculation.  We 
have  an  immense  amount  of  speculation  as  to  the  nature 


CHRISTIANITY   A   BATTLE,    NOT   A    DREAM.  285 

of  God,  the  soul's  relation  to  God,  the  essence  of  the 
soul,  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  the  nature  of  sin, 
and  the  characteristics  of  another  state.  It  seems  to 
me  that  most  of  that  is  dream  and  re  very.  The  marvel 
of  the  New  Testament  is  that  when  you  read  it  through, 
only  about  one  line  in  four  touches  upon  any  such 
problems.  There  is  very  little  of  it  there.  Christianity 
does  not  attempt  to  teach  us  any  of  this  metaphysics. 
The  glimpses  it  gives  us  of  it  are  all  accidental,  indirect, 
in  passing  along.  All  through  the  New  Testament  it  is 
not  the  future  life  and  the  essence  of  the  soul  that  are 
dwelt  on ;  it  is  the  problems  that  make  up  the  society 
of  to-day.  Open  your  New  Testament,  and  you  will  be 
surprised  to  find  the  comparative,  the  relative  amount 
that  there  is  on  the  one  topic  to  what  there  is  on  the 
other.  While  bishops  were  discussing  the  metaphys- 
ics of  the  soul,  and  German  theologians  were  dividing 
brains,  Christianity  was  writing  its  record  by  the  pen 
of  Beccaria,  when  he  taught  Europe  a  better  system  of 
penal  laws.  I  remember,  of  course,  the  duty  and  value 
of  prayer ;  the  place  devotion  has ;  the  need  all  human 
nature  has  for  meditation  and  self-culture.  But  viewed 
broadly,  and  noting  the  distinctive  nature  of  Christian- 
ity, when  Voltaire  thundered  across  Europe  in  defence 
of  Calais,  struggling  for  rational  religion,  he  was  nearer 
to  the  heart  of  Christ  than  Jeremy  Taylor  when  he  wrote 
his  eloquent  and  most  religious  essays,  "  Holy  Living 
and  Dying."  Bating  some  human  imperfections,  tram- 
pling under  foot  his  personal  vices,  and  remembering 
only  his  large  service  to  his  race,  when  even  that  name 
of  all  names  which  the  Christian  has  been  taught  to 
hate,  —  when  even  Thomas  Paine  went  into  the  other 
world  he  was  much  more  likely  to  be  received  with 
"  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant ! "  than  many  a 
bishop  who  died  under  an  English  mitre. 


286  CHRISTIANITY   A    BATTLE,    NOT   A   DREAM. 

There  are  two  classes  of  philanthropists ;  one  allevi- 
ates and  the  other  cures.  There  is  one  class  of  philan- 
thropists that  undertakes  when  a  man  commits  an  evil  to 
help  him  out  of  it.  There  is  another  class  that  en- 
deavors to  abolish  the  temptation.  The  first  is  senti- 
timent,  the  last  is  Christianity. 

The  religion  of  to-day  has  too  many  pulpits.  Men 
say  we  have  not  churches  enough.  We  have  too  many. 
Two  hundred  thousand  men  in  New  York  never  enter  a 
church.  There  is  not  room.  Thank  God  for  that !  If 
there  are  two  hundred  thousand  Christian  men  in  New 
York  that  cannot  get  into  a  church,  all  the  better. 
They  do  not  need  to  enter.  Christianity  never  intended 
the  pulpit  in  the  guise  in  which  we  have  it.  In  yonder 
college,  do  they  keep  boys  for  seventy  years  on  their 
hands,  lecturing  to  them  on  science  ?  When  Agassiz 
has  taught  his  pupils  fully,  he  sends  them  out  to  learn 
by  practice.  Of  these  fifty  or  sixty  pulpits  in  this  city, 
we  don't  need  more  than  ten  or  twenty.  They  will  ac- 
commodate all  who  should  hear  preaching.  The  rest 
should  be  in  the  State  prison  talking  to  the  inmates ; 
they  should  be  in  North  Street,  laboring  there  among 
the  poor  and  depraved.  Their  worship  should  be  putting 
their  gifts  to  use,  not  sitting  down  and  hearing  for  the 
hundredth  time  a  repetition  of  arguments  against  theft. 
There  will  never  be  any  practical  Christianity  until  we 
cease  to  teach  it,  and  let  men  begin  to  learn  by  practice. 
You  never  saw  a  Quaker  pauper ;  because  the  moment 
a  Quaker  begins  to  fail,  the  better  influences  surround 
and  besiege  him,  help  him  over  the  shallows,  strengthen 
his  purpose,  watch  his  steps,  hold  up  the  weary  hands 
and  feeble  knees,  and  see  to  it  that  lie  never  falls  so  low 
as  to  be  a  pauper.  Break  down  these  narrow  Quaker 
walls,  and  let  your  Christianity  model  a  world  on  the 
finer  elements  of  that  sect! 


CHRISTIANITY    A .  BATTLE,   NOT    A    DREAM.  287 

I  would  not  have  so  many  pulpits.  "  I  'm  not  going 
to  inflict  a  sermon  on  you,"  says  your  generously  con- 
siderate friend.  What  a  testimony  !  You  should  go  to 
church  when  you  absolutely  need  a  message;  you  should 
go  as  the  old  Christian  did,  who  went  to  pray  and  then 
off  to  his  work.  The  existence  of  a  poor  class  in  a 
Christian  community  is  an  evidence  that  it  is  not  a 
Christian  community.  There  ought  to  he  no  perma- 
nently poor  class  in  a  Christian  community.  "  Bear  ye 
one  another's  burdens."  Who  shall  so  slander  society 
as  to  say  that  there  is  not  enough  wealth  to  lift  up  its 
poverty  ?  We  never  look  at  our  duty  in  this  respect. 
Christianity  goes  round  amid  the  institutions  of  the  world 
and  stamps  each  as  sin.  Fashion  cries,  No ;  wealth 
says,  It  shall  not  be ;  and  churches  work  to  prevent  it, — 
but  by  and  by  the  whole  crashes  down.  Christianity 
marked  slavery  as  sin  one  hundred  years  ago.  You 
may  go  to  England  and  find  blue-books  that  might 
be  piled  up  as  high  as  Bunker  Hill,  which  were  written 
by  intelligent  committees,  set  to  inquire  whether  it  is 
safe  to  do  right.  The  principle  of  truth  was  there  car- 
ried out,  however,  and  culminated  with  Wilberforce,  as  he 
carried  up  eight  hundred  thousand  broken  fetters  to  God. 

[Mr.  Phillips  read  an  extract  from  an  article  in  one 
of  the  most  religious  of  our  daily  papers,  in  1861,  in 
which  it  was  stated  that  the  struggle  between  the  North 
and  the  Soutli  might  go  on  with  such  bitterness  that  we 
should  be  obliged  to  emancipate  the  slaves.  The  article 
said :  "  The  ordeal  was  one  m  which  hypocritical  philan- 
thropists and  bigoted  religionists  might  exult,  but  from 
which  genuine  Christianity  would  pray  most  earnestly 
that  the  nation  might  be  saved."] 

Every  man  in  political  life  now  will  say  that  he  knew 
for  years  that  slavery  was  wrong,  but  he  did  n't  think  it 
best  to  say  so.  Christianity  says,  "  Whatever  God  tells 


288  CHRISTIANITY   A   BATTLE,   NOT   A    DREAM. 

you,  don't  look  back  to  see  if  there 's  a  man  standing 
on  your  level  who  cannot  see  it ;  walk  forward  and  tell 
what  God  has  told  you."  Christianity  does  n't  reside  in 
metaphysics.  You  won't  find  it  in  some  of  the  most 
brilliant  articles  of  The  Radical,  or  in  the  stern  creed  of 
Andover ;  but  you  will  find  it  in  the  Peace  Society,  the 
Temperance  organization,  in  prison  discipline,  in  Anti- 
slavery,  in  Woman's  Rights,  in  the  eight-hour  movement. 
Some  may  smile  at  that ;  but  the  man  who  recognizes 
the  right  of  every  laboring  man,  and  shows  that  he 
knows  he  has  a  soul,  is  nearer  Christianity  than  he  who 
can  discuss  all  the  points  of  the  Godhead,  —  live  he  either 
at  Concord  or  any  where  else.  But  there  is  more  real, 
essential  Christianity  at  Concord  than  sleeps  under  a 
score  of  steeples. 

[Mr.  Phillips  spoke  of  his  recent  argument  before  the 
legislative  committee  on  the  Labor  Question,  and  said 
that  while  he  endeavored  to  show  that  the  working-men 
should  have  better  opportunities  to  improve  themselves 
physically,  socially,  morally,  and  spiritually,  with  the 
aid  of  more  leisure,  and  thus  secure  a  better  civilization, 
the  only  consideration  that  could  be  expected  to  have 
weight  with  the  committee  was  this  :  You  must  show 
that  a  man  can  do  as  much  work  in  eight  as  he  can  in 
ten  hours.] 

In  a  recent  speech  before  an  audience  of  three  thou- 
sand people  in  New  York,  I  alluded  to  the  governor's 
argument  that  alcohol  was  "  food,"  and  had  nutritive 
properties  as  well  as  beef.  Without  consulting  authori- 
ties, if  alcohol  is  food,  and  any  one  will  prove  to  me 
that  beef  causes  two  thirds  of  the  pauperism  and  crime 
in  the  community,  then  I  demand  the  prohibition  of  beef. 
One  half  of  my  audience  started  at  the  fanaticism,  and 
even  the  platform  trembled  at  the  audacity  of  such  a 
claim.  But  Paul,  the  ever-blessed  fanatic  and  agitator, 


CHRISTIANITY   A    BATTLE,   NOT    A    DREAM.  289 

once  said,  "  If  meat  make  my  brother  to  offend,  I  will 
eat  no  flesh  while  the  world  standeth." 

I  believe  in  the  regeneration  of  the  world  through 
Christianity.  We  are  in  a  transition  state.  Christianity 
is  moving  forward  to  fresh  triumphs  ;  but  there  will 
never  be  a  union  of  thought.  You  never  can  get  the 
Methodist  to  stand  side  by  side  with  the  Calvinist,  and 
the  conservative  and  the  radical  to  read  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  the  light  of  the  same  interpretation.  It  is  _a__ 
purpose  and  an  opportunity,  not  a  creed,  that  will  unite 
Christianity;  a  benevolent  movement,  not*  an  intellectual 
effort,  that  will  ever  make  a  seamless  garment  of  the 
Christian  Church.  If  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  rejects  the 
four  Gospels,  shall  agitate  Europe,  and  so  the  working- 
men  shall  be  lifted  from  the  pit  they  now  occupy, — 
a  pit  which  is  worse  than  any  hell  Calvin  ever  im- 
agined, —  then  I  shall  say  that  Lord  Shaftesbury  is  a 
dreamer,  and  John  Stuart  Mill  the  apostolic  successor 
of  Saint  Paul.  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them," 
said  the  Master.  Wherever  a  chain  is  broken,  wherever 
a  ray  of  light  is  admitted,  wherever  a  noble  purpose  is 
struggling,  wherever  an  obstacle  is  removed,  there  is 
Christianity. 

There  may  be  mummies  hidden  in  the  churches  ;  meta- 
physicians dividing  the  truth  according  to  the  north  or 
north-western  side  of  a  hair,  —  but  they  will  never  be  cru- 
cified ;  never  have  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  fretting 
that  their  time  is  come ;  they  will  never  have  the  devils 
of  their  age  asking  to  be  sent  into  the  swine.  We  don't 
know  Jesus,  and  no  man  would  know  him  if  he  came  to- 
day. We  imagine  that  he  was  a  respectable,  sentimental, 
decorous,  moderate,  careful,  conservative  element,  who 
took  a  hall  and  was  decently  surrounded.  He  was  the  se- 
dition of  the  streets.  He  said  to  wealth,  "  You  are  rob- 
bery," and  Christendom  stood  aghast.  He  said  to  Judah, 

19 


290  CHRISTIANITY    A    BATTLE,   NOT   A    DREAM. 

"  You  are  a  tyranny."  He  arraigned  unjust  power  at  its 
own  feet.  If  a  man  does  so  now  we  send  him  to  the 
Coventry  of  public  contempt  or  the  house  of  correc- 
tion. But  that  is  where  Christianity  goes.  That  is  the 
way  it  entered  the  world,  and  that  is  the  way  it  grapples 
with  the  world  to-day.  As  the  old  Italian  said  in  1554, 
"  There  has  not  a  Christian  died  in  his  bed,  for  two  hun- 
dred years."  There  will  never  a  Christian  die  in  his 
bed  in  the  sense  in  which  he  meant  it.  The  distinctive 
representative,  the  typical,  advanced  Christian  of  his  age 
will  never  die  in  a  respectable  bed,  because  the  society 
of  to-day,  though  growing  out  of  a  Christian  subsoil, 
struggles  yet  to  defy  its  Master. 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  the  wise  men  at  the  State 
House  that  they  are  gravitating  toward  the  despotism  of 
incorporated  wealth.  I  showed  them  that  in  a  republi- 
can community  you  could  not  afford  to  have  half  the  in- 
dividuality of  the  masses  taken  away,  because  you  would 
have  no  basis  for  our  form  of  government  to  rest  upon. 
I  did  n't  dare  to  say  to  that  legislature,  "  God  gives  to 
you  the  keeping,  annually,  of  so  many  hundred  thou- 
sand souls,  and  whether  they  are  good  voters  or  trust- 
worthy citizens,  is  a  secondary  matter.  You  should 
make  these  streets  safe  for  immortal  souls  to  grow  up 
in."  And  yet  that  legislature  is  better  than  a  church, 
for  it  says  there  shall  be  no  distinction  of  color.  It 
does  n't  know  caste.  But  when  you  go  down  to  the  Old 
South  Church,  you  find  it  has  taken  a  leaf  out  of  Hindo- 
stan,  and  has  black  men  in  one  place  and  white  men  in 
another.  That  is  a  church  ;  the  other  is  Christianity. 

I  have  impressed  this  fact,  —  Christianity  is  a  divine 
force  ;  it  is  the  great  force  to  which  we  owe  Europe ;  it 
is  the  key  that  unlocks  the  government,  the  society,  the 
literature  of  Europe.  It  unfolds  to  you  the  goal  toward 
which  we  are  all  hastening;  but  you  must  not  seek  for  it 


CHRISTIANITY    A    BATTLE,   NOT   A    DREAM.  291 

in  the  religious  organizations.  You  must  not  seek  for  it 
in  representative  and  organized  systems  which  undertake 
to  hold  its  essence.  The  Church  as  a  mile-stone  shows 
how  far  morals  have  travelled  up  to  that  moment.  The 
moment  it  is  found,  it  is  useless.  It  is  like  the  bulwarks 
of  Holland,  good  when  the  waters  are  outside,  but  all 
the  worse,  when  the  waters  are  inside,  to  keep  them  in. 

The  pioneer  goes  through  the  forest  girdling  the  trees 
as  he  moves,  and,  five  years  after,  these  trees  are  dead 
lumber.  So  Christianity  goes  through  society,  dooming 
now  this  institution  and  now  that  custom  as  sinful. 
Soon  they  die.  Look  back  forty  years.  Christianity 
branded  slavery  as  sin.  Wealth  laughed  scornfully  at 
the  fanaticism.  Fashion  swept  haughtily  past  in  her 
pride.  The  State  thought  to  smother  the  protest  by 
statutes.  The  Church  clasped  hands  and  blessed  the 
plot.  But  a  printer's  boy  yielded  himself  to  the  sublime 
inspiration,  gave  life  to  the  martyrdom  of  the  message  ; 
and  when  his  hand  struck  off  three  million  of  fetters, 
the  Church  said,  "  Yes,  I  did  it,  for  did  I  not  always  say 
'  There  was  no  bond  in  Christ  Jesus.' "  Yes,  you  did. 
But  when  to  take  that  terrible  protest  from  your  treas- 
ure-house and  flare  it  in  the  face  of  an  angry  nation, 
was  grave  peril  and  cruel  sacrifice,  you  hid  it !  You 
always  had  the  truth  ;  your  only  lack  was  life  to  be- 
lieve, and  courage  to  apply  it.  The  question  that  lies 
beyond,  and  has  for  thirty  years,  is  the  question  of  race. 
We  lifted  races  up  to  a  dead  level,  and  the  Church  said, 
"  Did  n't  I  tell  you  God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth  ?  "  And  we  all  said  :  "  Yes,  you 
did.  The  trouble  was  that  when  it  was  crucifixion  to 
apply  it,  you  could  not  see  it." 

The  thing  that  lies  beyond  is  sex.  Will  you  crush 
woman  out  of  her  opportunities  ?  The  Church  says, 
"  Yes."  But  the  age  travels  on,  and  by  and  by  she  will 


292  CHRISTIANITY    A    BATTLE,    NOT   A    DREAM. 

take  her  place  side  by  side  with  man  in  politics,  as  she 
does  in  society,  and  then  the  Church  will  say,  "  Did  n't 
I  tell  you  so  ?  There  is  neither  male  nor  female  in 
Christ."  Then  we  shall  say  :  "  Yes,  you  did ;  but  when 
it  was  vulgar  and  unpopular  and  isolated  to  apply  it, 
you  were  not  there."  And  beyond  that  lies  the  darkened 
chamber  of  labor  that  only  rises  to  toil  and  lies  down 
to  rest.  It  is  lifted  by  no  hope,  mellowed  by  no  comfort ; 
looks  into  gardens  it  created,  and  up  to  wealth  which  it 
has  garnered,  and  has  no  pleasure  thence ;  looks  down 
into  its  cradle,  —  there  is  no  hope  :  and  Stuart  Mill 
says  to  the  Church,  "  Come  and  claim  for  labor  its  great 
share  in  civilization  and  its  products ; "  the  bench  of 
bishops  says,  "  Let  us  have  a  charity-school ; "  Episco- 
pacy says,  "  We  will  print  a  primer ; "  the  dissenting  in- 
terest says,  "  We  will  have  cheap  soup-houses ; "  Lord 
Shaftesbury  says,  "  We  will  have  May-day  pastimes  ; " 
and  gaunt  labor  says,  "  I  don't  ask  pity,  I  ask  for  jus- 
tice. In  the  name  of  the  Christian  brotherhood  I  ask 
for  justice."  And  the  Church  quietly  hides  itself  behind 
its  prayer-book,  and  the  great  vital  force  underneath 
bears  us  onward,  till  by  and  by  through  the  ballot,  by 
the  power  of  selfish  interest,  by  the  combination  of 
necessity,  labor  will  clutch-  its  rights,  and  the  Church 
will  say,  "  So  I  did  it !  " 

You  have  no  right  to  luxuriate.  If  you  are  Christian 
men,  you  should  sell  your  sword  and  garments,  go  into 
your  neighbor's  house  and  start  a  public  opinion,  and 
rouse  and  educate  the  masses.  One  soul  with  an  idea 
outweighs  ninety-nine  men  moved  only  by  interests. 
Though  there  are  powerful  obstacles  in  our  pathway, 
they  will  be  permeated  by  the  idea  we  advocate,  as  was 
Caesar's  palace  by  the  weeds  nurtured  by  an  Italian 
summer.  It  was  supposed  that  nothing  less  than  an 
earthquake  that  would  shake  the  seven  hills  could  dis- 


CHRISTIANITY   A    BATTLE,    NOT    A    DREAM.  293 

turb  the  solid  walls,  but  the  tiny  weeds  of  an  Italian 
summer  struck  roots  between  them  and  tossed  the  huge 
blocks  of  granite  into  shapeless  ruins.  So  must  inevi- 
tably  our  ideas,  —  the  only  living  forces,  —  for  a  while 
overawed  by  marble  and  gold  and  iron  and  organization, 
heave  all  to  ruin  and  rebuild  on  a  finer  model. 


THE  PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  JOHN 
BROWN. 


Delivered  in  Music  Hall  before  the  Twenty-eighth  Congregational 
Society,  December  18,  1859. 

I  THANK  God  for  John  Calvin.  To  be  sure,  he  burned 
Servetus ;  but  the  Puritans,  or  at  least  their  imme- 
diate descendants,  hung  the  witches ;  George  Washing- 
ton held  slaves  ;  and  wherever  you  go  up  and  down 
history,  you  find  men,  not  angels.  Of  course  you  find 
imperfect  men,  but  you  find  great  men ;  men  who  have 
marked  their  own  age,  and  moulded  the  succeeding ; 
men  to  whose  might  of  ability,  and  to  whose  disinterested 
suffering  for  those  about  them,  the  succeeding  genera- 
tions owe  the  larger  share  of  their  blessings  ;  men  whose 
lips  and  lives  God  has  made  the  channel  through  which 
his  choicest  gifts  come  to  their  fellow-beings.  John 
Calvin  was  one  of  these,  —  perhaps  the  profoundest  in- 
tellect of  his  day,  certainly  one  of  the  largest  statesmen 
of  his  generation.  His  was  the  statesman-like  mind  that 
organized  Puritanism,  that  put  ideas  into  the  shape  of 
institutions,  and  in  that  way  organized  victory,  when, 
under  Loyola,  Catholicism,  availing  itself  of  the  shrewd- 
est and  keenest  machinery,  made  its  reacti&  assault 
upon  the  new  idea  of  the  Protestant  religion.  If  in  that 
struggle,  Western  Europe  came  out  victorious,  we  owe  it 
more  to  the  statesmanship  of  Calvin,  than  to  the  large 
German  heart  of  Luther.  We  owe  to  Calvin  —  at  least, 


THE   PURITAN    PRINCIPLE    AND    JOHN    BROWN.          295 

it  is  not  unfair  to  claim,  nor  improbable  in  the  sequence 
of  events  to  suppose  that  a  large  share  of  those  most 
eminent  and  excellent  characteristics  of  New  England,/ 
which  have  made  her  what  she  is,  and  saved  her  for  the 
future,  came  from  the  brain  of  John  Calvin. 

Luther's  biography  is  to  be  read  in  books.  The  .plod- 
ding patience  of  the  German  intellect^ has  gathered  up 
every  trait  and  every  trifle,  the  minutest,  of  his  life,  and 
you  may  read  it  spread  out  in  loving  admiration  on  a 
thousand  pages  of  biography.  Calvin's  life  is  written  in 
Scotland  and  New  England,  in  the  triumphs  of  the  people 
against  priestcraft  and  power.  To  him,  more  than  to 
any  other  man,  the  Puritans  owed  republicanism,  —  the 
republicanism  of  the  Church.  The  instinct  of  his  day 
recognized  that  clearly,  distinguishing  this  element  of 
Calvinism.  You  see  it  in  the  wit  'of  Charles  II., 
when  he  said,  u  Calvinism  is  a  religion  unfit  for  a 
gentleman."  It  was  unfit  for  a  gentleman  of  that  day, 
for  it  was  a  religion  of  the  people.  It  recognized  —  first 
since  the  earliest  centuries  of  Christianity  —  that  the 
heart  of  God  beats  through  every  human  heart,  and  that 
when  you  mass  up  the  millions,  with  their  instinctive, 
fair-play  sense  of  right,  and  their  devotional  impulses, 
you  get  nearer  God's  heart  than  from  the  second-hand 
scholarship  and  conservative  tendency  of  what  are  called 
the  thoughtful  and  educated  classes.  We  owe  this  ele- 
ment, good  or  bad,  to  Calvinism. 

Then,  we  owe  to  it  a  second  element,  marking  the 
Puritans  most  largely,  and  that  is  action.  The  Puritan 
was  not  a  man  of  speculation.  He  originated  nothing. 
His  principles  are  to  be  found  broadcast  in  the  centuries 
Ix-hind  him.  His  speculations  were  all  old.  You  might 
find  them  in  the  lectures  of  Abelard  ;  you  meet  with 
them  in  the  radicalism  of  Wat  Tyler;  you  find  them  all 
over  the  continent  of  Europe.  The  distinction  between 


296          THE   PURITAN    PRINCIPLE    AND    JOHN    BROWN. 

his  case  and  that  of  others  was  simply  that  he  practised 
what  he  believed.  He  believed  God.  He  actually  be- 
lieved him, — "just  as  much  as  if  he  saw  demonstrated 
before  his  eyes  the  truth  of  the  principle.  For  it  is  a 
very  easy  thing  to  say ;  the  difficulty  is  to  do.  If  you 
will  tell  a  man  the  absolute  truth,  that  if  he  will  plunge 
into  the  ocean,  and  only  keep  his  eyes  fixed  on  heaven, 
lie  will  never  sink,  —  you  can  demonstrate  it  to  him,  you 
can  prove  it  to  him  by  weight  and  measure, —  each  man 
of  a  thousand  will"  believe  "you,  as  they  say;  and  then 
they  will  plunge  into  the  water,  and  nine  hundred  and 
ninty-nine  will  throw  up  their  arms  to  clasp  some  straw 
or  neighbor,  and  sink  ;  the  thousandth  will  keep  his 
hands  by  his  body,  believing  God,  and  float,  —  and  he  is 
the  Puritan.  Every  other  man  wants  to  get  hold  of 
something  to  stay  himself ;  not  on  faith  in  God's  eternal 
principle  of  natural  or  religious  law,  but  on  his  neighbor  ; 
he  wants  to  lean  on  somebody ;  he  wants  to  catch  hold 
of  something.  The  Puritan  puts  his  hands  to  his  side, 
and  his  eyes  upon  heaven,  and  floats  down  the  centuries, 
—  faith  personified. 

These  two  elements  of  Puritanism  are,  it  seems  to  me, 
those  which  made  New  England  what  she  is.  You  see 
them  everywhere  developing  into  institutions.  For 
instance,  if  there  is  anything  that  makes  us,  and  that 
made  Scotland,  it  is  common  schools.  We  got  them 
from  Geneva.  Luther  said,  "  A  wicked  tyrant  is  batter 
than  a  wicked  war."  It  was  the  essence  of  aristocracy. 
"  Better  submit  to  any  evil  from  above  than  trust  the 
masses."  Calvin  no  sooner  set  his  foot  in  Geneva  than 
he  organized  the  people  into  a  constituent  element  of  pub- 
lic affairs.  He  planted  education  at  the  root  of  the 
Republic.  The  Puritans  borrowed  it  in  Holland,  and 
brought  it  to  New  England,  and  it  is  the  sheet-anchor 
that  has  held  us  amid  the  storms  and  the  temptations  of 


THE   PURITAN    PRINCIPLE    AND   JOHN    BROWN.          297 

two  hundred  years.  We  have  a  people  that  can  think,  a 
people  that  can  read  ;  and  out  of  the  millions  of  refuse 
lumber,  God  selects  one  in  a  generation,  and  he  is 
enough  to  save  a  State.  One  man  that  thinks  for  him- 
self is  the  salt  of  a  generation  poisoned  with  printing 
ink  or  cotton  dust. 

The  Puritans  scattered  broadcast  the  seeds  of  thought. 
They  knew  it  was  an  error,  in  counting  up  the  popula- 
tion, to  speak  of  a  million  of  souls  because  there  was 
a  million  of  bodies,  —  as  if  every  man  carried  a  soul ! 
but  they  knew,  trusting  the  mercy  of  God,  that  by  edu- 
cating all,  the  martyrs  and  the  saints  —  that  do  not 
travel  in  battalions,  that  never  come  to  us  in  regiments, 
but  come  alone,  now  and  then  one  —  would  be  reached 
and  unfolded,  and  save  their  own  time.  Puritanism, 
therefore,  is  action;  it  is  impersonating  ideas;  it  is  dis- 
trusting and  being  willing  to  shake  off  what  are  called 
institutions.  They  were  above  words  ;  they  went  out  into 
the  wilderness  outside  of  forms.  The  consequence  was, 
that  throughout  their  whole  history,  there  is  the  most 
daring  confidence  in  their  being  substantially  right.  The 
consequence  is,  that  when  Conservatism  comes  together 
to-day,  whether  in  the  form  of  a  "  Union  meeting,"  -  —  dead 
men  turning  in  their  graves  and  pretending  to  be  alive,  — 
whether  it  be  in  this  form,  or  any  other,  its  occupation  is 
to  explain  how,  a  hundred  years  ago,  it  was  right,  and 
not  to  see  the  reflection  of  a  hundred  years  ago  staring 
them  in  the  face  to-day.  Like  the  sitting  figure  on  our 
coin,  they  are  looking  back  ;  they  have  no  eyes  for  the 
future.  The  souls  that  God  touches  have  their  brows 
gilded  by  the  dawn  of  the  future.  A  man  present  at  the 
glorious  martyrdom  of  the  2d  of  December,  said  of  the 
hero-saint  who  marched  out  of  the  jail,  "  He  seemed  to 
come,  his  brow  radiant  with  triumph."  It  was  the  dawn 
of  a  future  day  that  gilded  his  brow.  He  was  high 


298          THE   PURITAN   PRINCIPLE   AND   JOHN   BROWN. 

enough  in  the  Providence  of  God,  to  catch,  earlier  than 
the  present  generation,  the  dawn  of  the  day  that  he 
was  to  inaugurate. 

This  is  my  idea  of  Puritan  principles.  Nothing  new 
in  them.  How  are  we  to  vindicate  them  ?  Eminent 
historians  and  patriots  have  told  us  that  the  pens  of  thp 
Puritans  are  their  best  witnesses.  It  does  not  seem  to 
me  so.  We_  are  their  witnesses.  If  they  lived  to  any 
purpose,  they  produced  a  generation  better  than  them- 
selves. The  true  man  always  makes  himself  to  be  out- 
done by  his  child.  The  vindication  of  Puritanism  is  a 
New  England  bound  to  be  better  than  Puritanism  ; 
bound  to  look  back  and  see  its  faults,  and  meet  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  present  day,  not  with  stupid  imitation, 
but  with  that  essential  disinterestedness  with  which  they 
met  the  exigencies  of  their  time.  Take  an  illustration. 
When  our  fathers  stood  in  London,  under  the  corpora- 
tion charter  of  Charles,  the  question  was,  "  Have  we  a 
right  to  remove  to  Massachusetts  ?  "  The  lawyers  said, 
"  No."  The  fathers  said,  "  Yes  ;  we  will  remove  to  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  let  law  find  the  reason  fifty  years  hence." 
They  knew  they  had  the  substantial  right.  Their  motto 
was  not  "  Law  and  Order  ;  "  it  was  "  God  and  Justice," 
—  a  much  better  motto.  Unless  you  take  law  and  or- 
der in  the  highest  meaning  of  the  words,  it  is  a  base 
motto,  —  if  it  means  only  recognizing  the  majority. 
Crime  comes  to  history  gilded  and  crowned,  and  says, 
"  I  am  not  crime,  I  am  success."  And  history,  written 
by  a  soul  girded  with  parchments  and  stunned  with 
half-a-dozen  languages,  says,  "  Yes,  thou  art  success ; 
we" accept  tliee."  But  the  faithful  soul  below  cries  out, 
"  Thou  art  crime  !  A  vaunt !  "  There  is  so  much  in 
words. 

This  is  the  lesson  of  Puritanism,  —  how  shall  we  meet 
it  to-day  ?  Every  age  stereotypes  its  ideas  into  forms. 


THE   PURITAN    PRINCIPLE   AND    JOHN    BROWN.          299 

It  is  the  natural  tendency ;  and  when  it  is  done,  every 
u.ire  grows  old  and  dies.  It  is  God's  beneficent  Provi- 
dence, —  death !  When  ideas  have  shaped  themselves 
and  become  fossil  and  still,  God  takes  off  the  weight  of 
the  dead  men  from  their  age,  and  leaves  room  for  the 
new  bud.  It  is  a  blessed  institution,  —  death!  But 
there  are  men  running  about  who  think  that  those  forms 
which  are  old  and  which  the  experience  of  the  past  left 
them  are  necessarily  right  and  efficient.  They  are  the 
conservatives.  The  men  who  hold  their  ears  open  for  the 
message  of  the  present  hour,  they  are  the  Puritans. 

I  know  these  things  seem  very  trite  ;  they  are  very 
trite.  All  truth  is  trite.  The  difficulty  is  not  in  truth. 
Truth  never  stirs  up  any  trouble,  —  mere  speculative 
truth.  Plato  taught,  —  nobody  cared  what  he  taught ; 
Socrates  acted,  and  they  poisoned  him.  It  is  when  a 
man  throws  himself  against  society,  thai;  society  is  star- 
tled to  persecute  and  to  think.  The  Puritan  did  not 
stop  to  think ;  he  recognized  God  in  his  soul,  and 
acted.  If  he  had  acted  wrong,  our  generation  would 
load  down  his  grave  with  curses.  He  took  the  risk  ; 
he  took  the  curses  of  the  present,  but  the  blessings  of 
the  future  swept  them  away,  and  God's  sunlight  rests 
upon  his  grave.  That  is  what  every  brave  man  does. 
It  is  an  easy  thing  to  say.  The  old  fable  is  of  Sisyphus 
rolling  up  a  stone,  and  the  moment  he  gets  it  up  to  the 
mountain-top,  it  rolls  back  again.  So  each  generation, 
with  much  trouble  and  great  energy  and  disinterested- 
ness, vindicates  for  a  few  of  its  sons  the  right  to  think  ; 
and  the  moment  they  have  vindicated  the  right,  the 
stone  rolls  back  again,  —  nobody  else  must  think  !  The 
battle  must  be  fought  every  day,  because  the  body  rebels 
against  the  soul.  It  is  the  insurrection  of  the  soul 
against  the  body,  —  free  thought.  The  gods  piled  Etna 
upon  the  insurgent  Titans.  It  is  the  emblem  of  the 


300          THE   PURITAN   PRINCIPLE   AN0   JOHN   BROWN. 

world  piling  mountains  —  banks,  gold,  cotton,  parties, 
Everetts,  Cushings,  Couriers,  everything  dull  and 
heavy  —  to  keep  down  thought.  And  ever  again,  in 
each  generation,  the  living  soul,  like  the  bursting  bud, 
throws  up  the  incumbent  soil  and  finds  its  way  to  the 
sunshine  and  to  God,  and  is  the  oak  of  the  future, 
leaving  out,  spreading  its  branches,  and  sheltering  the 
race  and  time  that  is  to  come. 

I  hold  in  my  hand  the  likeness  of  a  child  of  seventeen 
summers,  taken  from  the  body  of  a  boy,  her  husband, 
who  lies  buried  on  the  banks  of  the  Shenandoah.  He 
flung  himself  against  a  State  for  an  idea,  the  child  of  a 
father  who  lived  for  an  idea,  who  said,  "  I  know  that 
slavery  is  wrong;  thou  shalt  do  unto  another  as  thou 
wouldst  have  another  do  to  thee,"  —  and  flung  himself 
against  the  law  and  order  of  his  time.  Nobody  can  dis- 
pute his  principles.  There  are  men  who  dispute  his 
acts.  It  is  exactly  what  he  meant  they  should  do.  It 
is  the  collision  of  admitted  principles  with  conduct  which 
is  the  teaching  of  ethics  ;  it  is  the  normal  school  of  a 
generation.  Puritanism  went  up  and  down  England  and 
fulfilled  its  mission.  It  revealed  despotism.  Charles  I. 
and  James,  in  order  to  rule,  were  obliged  to  persecute. 
Under  the  guise  of  what  seemed  government,  they  had 
hidden  tyranny.  Patriotism  tore  off  the  mask,  and 
said  to  the  enlightened  conscience  and  sleeping  intellect 
of  England,  "  Behold,  that  is  despotism !  "  It  was  the 
first  lesson  ;  it  was  the  text  of  the  English  Revolution. 
Men  still  slumbered  in  submission  to  law.  They  tore  off 
the  semblance  of  law  ;  they  revealed  despotism.  John 
Brown  has  done  the  same  for  us  to-day.  The  slave 
system  has  lost  its  fascination.  It  had  a  certain  pictur- 
esque charm  for  some.  It  called  itself  "  chivalry,"  and 
"  a  State."  One  assault  has  broken  the  charm,  —  it  is 
despotism ! 


THE    PURITAN    PRINCIPLE    AND    JOHN    BROWN.  301 

Look  how  barbarous  it  is  !  Take  a  single  instance. 
A  young  girl  throws  herself  upon  the  bosom  of  a 
Northern  boy  who  himself  had  shown  mercy,  and  en- 
deavors to  save  him  from  the  Christian  rifles  of  Virginia. 
They  tore  her  off,  and  the  pitiless  bullet  found  its  way  to 
the  brave,  young  heart.  She  stands  upon  the  streets  of 
that  very  town,  and  dares  not  avow  the  motive  —  glorious, 
humane  instinct  —  that  led  her  to  throw  herself  on  the 
bosom  of  the  hapless  boy  !  She  bows  to  the  despotism  of 
her  brutal  State,  and  makes  excuses  for  her  humanity  ! 
That  is  the  Christian  Virginia  of  1859.  In  1608  an 
Indian  girl  flung  herself  before  her  father's  tomahawk 
on  the  bosom  of  an  English  gentleman,  and  the  Indian 
refrained  from  touching  the  English  traveller  whom  his 
daughter's  affection  protected.  Pocahontas  lives  to-day, 
the  ideal  beauty  of  Virginia,  and  her  proudest  names 
strive  to  trace  their  lineage  to  the  brave  Indian  girl  : 
that  was  Pagan  Virginia,  two  centuries  and  a  half  ago. 
What  has  dragged  her  down  from  Pocahontas  in  1608 
to  John  Brown  in  1859,  when  humanity  is  disgraceful, 
and  despotism  treads  it  out  under  its  iron  heel  ?  Who 
revealed  it  ? 

One  brave  act  of  an  old  Puritan  soul,  that  did  not 
stop  to  ask  what  the  majority,.,tirought,  or  what  forms 
were,  but  acted.  The  revelation  of  despotism  is  the  great 
lesson  which  the  Puritan  of  one  month  ago  has  taught 
us.  He  lias  flung  himself,  under  the  instinct  of  a  great 
idea,  against  the  institutions  beneath  which  we  sit,  and 
he  says,  practically,  to  the  world,  as  the  Puritan  did  : 
"  If  I  am  a  felon,  bury  me  with  curses.  I  will  trust  to 
a  future  age  to  judge  between  you  and  me.  Posterity 
will  summon  the  State  to  judgment,  and  will  admit  my 
principle.  I  can  wait."  Men  say  it  is  anarchy,  that  this 
right  of  the  individual  to  sit  in  judgment  cannot  be 
trusted.  It  is  the  lesson  of  Puritanism.  If  the  Individ- 


302          THE   PURITAN    PRINCIPLE   AND   JOHN   BROWN. 

ual  criticising  law  cannot  be  trusted,  then  Puritanism  is 
a  mistake,  for  the  sanctity  of  individual  judgment  is  the 
lesson  of  Massachusetts  history  in  1620  and  '30.  We 
accepted  anarchy  as  the  safest.  The  Puritan  said  :  "  Hu- 
man nature  is  sinful ; "  so  the  earth  is  accursed  since 
the  fall ;  but  I  cannot  find  anything  better  than  this  old 
earth  to  build  on  ;  I  must  put  my  corner-stone  upon  it, 
cursed  as  it  is  ;  I  cannot  lay  hold  of  the  battlements  of 
heaven.  So  Puritanism  said  :  "  Human  nature  is  sinful, 
but  it  is  the  best  basis  we  have  got.  We  will  build  upon 
it,  and  we  will  trust  the  influences  of  God,  the  inherent 
gravitation  of  the  race  toward  right,  that  it  will  end 
right." 

I  affirm  that  this  is  the  lesson  of  our  history,  —  that 
the  world  is  fluid ;  that  we  are  on  the  ocean  ;  that  we 
cannot  get  rid  of  the  people,  and  we  do  not  want  to ; 
that  the  millions  are 'our  basis ;  and  that  God  has  set  us 
this  task  :  "  If  you  want  good  institutions,  do  not  try  to 
bulwark  out  the  ocean  of  popular  thought,  educate  it. 
If  you  want  good  laws,  earn  them."  Conservatism  says  : 
"  I  can  make  my  own  hearthstone  safe ;  I  can  build  a 
bulwark  of  gold  and  bayonets  about  it  high  as  heaven 
and  deep  as  hell,  and  nobody  can  touch  me,  and  that  is 
enough."  Puritanism  says :  "  It  is  a  delusion  ;  it  is  a 
refuge  of  lies  ;  it  is  not  safe  ;  the  waters  of  popular  in- 
stinct will  carry  it  away.  If  you  want  your  own  cradle 
safe,  make  the  cradle  of  every  other  man  safe  and  pure. 
Educate  the  people  up  to  the  law  you  want."  How  ? 
They  cannot  stop  for  books.  Show  them  manhood. 
Show  them  a  brave  act.  What  has  John  Brown  done 
for  us  ?  The  world  doubted  over  the  horrid  word  "  in- 
surrection," whether  the  victim  had  a  right  to  arrest  the 
course  of  his  master,  and  even  at  any  expense  of  blood, 
to  vindicate  his  rights  ;  and  Brown  said  to  his  neighbors 
in  the  old  school-house  at  North  Elba,  sitting  among  the 


THE   PURITAN    PRINCIPLE    AND   JOHN    BROWN.          303 

snow,  where  nothing  grows  but  men,  and  even  wheat 
freezes  :  "  I  can  go  South,  and  show  the  world  that  he  has 
a  right  to  rise  and  can  rise."  He  went,  girded  about  by 
his  household,  carrying  his  sons  with  him.  Proof  of  a 
life  devoted  to  an  idea !  Not  a  single  spasmodic  act  of 
greatness,  coining  out  with  no  back-ground,  but  the 
flowering  of  sixty  years.  The  proof  of  it,  that  every- 
thing around  him  grouped  itself  harmoniously,  like  the 
planets  around  the  central  sun.  He  went  down  to  Vir- 
ginia, took  possession  of  a  town,  and  held  it.  He  says  : 
"  You  thought  this  was  strength  ;  I  demonstrate  it  is 
weakness.  You  thought  this  was  civil  society  ;  I  show 
you  it  is  a  den  of  pirates."  Then  he  turned  around  in 
his  sublimity,  with  his  Puritan  devotional  heart,  and 
said  to  the  millions,  "Learn  !  "  And  God  lifted  a  mil- 
lion hearts  to  his  gibbet,  as  the  Roman  cross  lifted  a 
million  of  hearts  to  it  in  that  divine  sacrifice  of  two 
thousand  years  ago.  To-day,  more  than  a  statesman 
could  have  taught  in  seventy  years,  one  act  of  a  week 
has  taught  these  eighteen  millions  of  people.  That  is 
the  Puritan  principle. 

What  shall  it  teach  us  ?  "  Go  thou  and  do  likewise." 
Do  it  by  a  resolute  life ;  do  it  by  a  fearless  rebuke  ;  do 
it  by  preaching  the  sermon  of  which  this  act  is  the  text ; 
do  it  by  standing  by  the  great  example  which  God  has 
given  us  ;  do  it  by  tearing  asunder  the  veil  of  respec- 
tability which  covers  brutality  calling  itself  law.  We 
had  a  "  Union  meeting  "  in  this  city  a  while  ago.  For 
the  first  time  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  political  brutal- 
ity dared  to  enter  the  sacredness  of  the  sick  chamber, 
and  visit  with  ridicule  the  broken  intellect,  sheltered 
from  criticism  under  the  cover  of  sickness.  Never,  since 
I  knew  Boston,  has  any  lip,  however  excited,  dared  to 
open  the  door  which  God's  hand  had  closed,  making 
the  inmate  sacred,  as  he  rested  under  broken  health. 


304          THE   PURITAN   PRINCIPLE   AND   JOHN    BROWN. 

The  four  thousand  men  who  sat  beneath  the  speaker  are 
said  to  have  received  it  in  silence.  If  so,  it  can  only  be 
that  they  were  not  surprised  at  the  brutality  from  such 
lips.  And  those  who  sat  at  his  side,  —  they  judge  us  by 
our  associates ;  they  criticise  us,  in  general,  for  the  loud 
word  of  any  comrade.  Shall  we  take  the  scholar  of 
New  England,  and  drag  him  down  to  the  level  of  the 
brutal  Swiss  of  politics,  and  judge  him  indecent  because 
his  associates  were  indecent  ?  I  thank  God  for  the  op- 
portunity of  protesting,  in  the  name  of  Boston  decency, 
against  the  brutal  language  of  a  man,  —  thank  God,  not 
born  on  our  peninsula,  —  against  the  noble  and  benighted 
intellect  of  Gerrit  Smith. 

On  that  occasion,  too,  a  noble  island  was  calumniated. 
The  New  England  scholar,  bereft  of  everything  else  on 
which  to  arraign  the  great  movement  in  Virginia,  takes 
up  a  lie  about  St.  Domingo,  and  hurls  it  in  the  face  of 
an  ignorant  audience,  —  ignorant,  because  no  man  ever 
thought  it  worth  while  to  do  justice  to  the  negro.  Ed- 
ward Everett  would  be  the  last  to  allow  us  to  take  an 
English  version  of  Bunker  Hill,  to  take  an  Englishman's 
account  of  Hamilton  and  Washington  as  they  stood 
beneath  the  scaffold  of  Andre,  and  read  it  to  an  Amer- 
ican audience  as  a  faithful  description  of  the  scene. 
But  when  he  wants  to  malign  a  race,  he  digs  up  from 
the  prejudice  of  an  enemy  they  had  conquered,  a  forgot- 
ten lie,  —  showing  how  weak  was  the  cause  he  espoused 
when  the  opposite  must  be  assailed  with  falsehood,  for  it 
could  not  be  assailed  with  anything  else. 

I  said  that  they  had  gone  to  sleep,  and  only  turned  in 
their  graves,  —  those  men  in  Faneuil  Hall.  It  was  not 
wholly  true.  The  chairman  came  down  from  the  heart 
of  the  Commonwealth,  and  spoke  to  Boston  safe  words 
in  Faneuil  Hall,  for  which  he  would  have  been  lynched 
at  Richmond,  had  he  uttered  them  there  that  evening. 


THE   PURITAN    PRINCIPLE   AND   JOHN    BROWN.          305 

Thanks  to  God,  I  said,  as  I  read  it,  a  hunker  cannot 
live  in  Massachusetts  without  being  wider  awake  than 
he  imagines.  He  must  imbibe  fanaticism.  Insurrection 
is  epidemic  in  the  State  ;  treason  is  our  inheritance. 
The  Puritans  planted  it  in  the  very  structure  of  the 
State  ;  and  when  their  children  try  to  curse  a  martyr, 
like  the  prophet  of  old,  half  the  curse,  at  least,  turns 
into  a  blessing.  I  thank  God  for  that  Massachusetts  ! 
Let  us  not  blame  our  neighbors  too  much.  There  is 
something  in  the  very  atmosphere  that  stands  above 
the  ashes  of  the  Puritans  that  prevents  the  most  ser- 
vile of  hearts  from  holding  a  meeting  which  the  des- 
pots of  Virginia  can  relish.  They  do  not  know  how  to 
be  servile  within  forty  miles  of  Plymouth.  They  have 
not  learned  the  part;  with  all  their  wish,  they  play  it 
awkwardly.  It  is  the  old  stiff  Puritan  trying  to  bend, 
and  they  do  it  with  a  marvellous  lack  of  grace. 

I  read  encouragement  in  the  very  signs,  the  awkward 
attempts  made  to  resist  this  very  effort  of  the  glorious 
martyr  of  the  northern  hills  of  New  York.  Virginia  her- 
self looks  into  his  face,  and  melts  ;  she  has  nothing  but 
praises.  She  tries  to  scan  his  traits  ;  they  are  too  manly, 
and  she  bows.  Her  press  can  only  speak  of  his  manhood. 
One  has  to  get  outside  the  influence  of  his  personal 
presence  before  the  slaves  of  Virginia  can  dig  up  a 
forgotten  Kansas  lie,  and  hurl  it  against  the  picture 
which  Virginian  admiration  has  painted.  That  does 
not  come  from  Virginia.  Northern  men  volunteer  to 
do  the  work  which  Virginia,  lifted  for  a  moment  by  the 
sight  of  martyrdom,  is  unable  to  accomplish.  A  New- 
buryport  man  comes  to  Boston,  and  says  that  he  knows 
John  Brown  was  at  the  massacre  of  Pottawatomie.  He 
was  only  twenty-five  miles  off !  The  Newburyport  ora- 
tor gets  within  thirty  miles  of  the  truth,  and  that  is 
very  near,  —  for  him  !  But  Virginia  was  unable  —  mark 

20 


306          THE   PURITAN    PRINCIPLE   AND    JOHN   BROWN. 

you  !  —  Virginia  was  unable  to  criticise.  She  could  only 
bow.  It  is  the  most  striking  evidence  of  the  majesty 
of  the  action. 

There  is  one  picture  which  stands  out  in  bright  relief 
in  this  event.  On  that  mountain  side  of  the  Adirondack, 
up  among  the  snows,  there  is  a  plain  cottage  —  "  plain 
living  and  high  thinking,"  as  Wordsworth  says.  Grouped 
there  are  a  family  of  girls  and  boys,  the  oldest  hardly  over 
twenty ;  sitting  supreme,  the  majestic  spirit  of  a  man 
just  entering  age,  —  life,  one  purpose.  Other  men  breed 
their  sons  for  ambition,  avarice,  trade  ;  lie  breeds  his 
for  martyrdom,  and  they  accept  serenely  their  places. 
Hardly  a  book  under  that  roof  but  the  Bible.  No  sound 
so  familiar  as  prayer.  He  takes  them  in  his  right  hand 
and  in  his  left,  and  goes  down  to  the  land  of  bondage. 
Like  the  old  Puritans  of  two  hundred  years  ago,  the 
muskets  are  on  one  side  and  the  pikes  upon  the  other ; 
but  the  morning  prayer  goes  up  from  the  domestic  altar 
as  it  rose  from  the  lips  of  Brewster  and  Carver,  and  no 
morsel  is  ever  tasted  without  that  same  grace  which  was 
made  at  Plymouth  and  Salem ;  and  at  last  he  flings 
himself  against  the  gigantic  system  which  trembles 
under  his  single  arm. 

You  measure  the  strength  of  a  blow  by  the  force  of 
the  rebound.  Men  thought  Virginia  a  Commonwealth  ; 
he  reveals  it  a  worse  than  Austrian  despotism.  Neigh- 
bors dare  not  speak  to  each  other  •  no  man  can  travel 
on  the  highway  without  a  passport ;  the  telegraph  wires 
are  sealed,  except  with  a  permit ;  the  State  shakes 
beneath  the  tramp  of  cannon  and  armed  men.  What 
does  she  fear  ?  Conscience  !  The  Apostle  has  come  to 
torment  her,  and  he  finds  the  weakest  spot  herself.  She 
dares  not  trust  the  usual  forms  of  justice.  Arraigned 
in  what  she  calls  her  court  is  a  wounded  man,  on  a  pallet, 
unable  to  stand.  The  civilized  world  stands  asrhast.  She 


THE   PURITAN    PRINCIPLE   AND   JOHN   BROWN.          307 

says,  "  It  is  necessary."  Why  ?  "I  stand  on  a  volcano. 
The  Titans  are  heaving  beneath  the  mountains.  Thought 
—  the  earthquake  of  conscience  —  is  below  me."  It  is 
the  acknowledgment  of  defeat.  The  Roman  thought, 
when  he  looked  upon  the  cross,  that  it  was  the  symbol  of 
infamy,  —  only  the  vilest  felon  hung  there.  One  sacred 
sacrifice,  and  the  cross  nestles  in  our  hearts,  the  emblem 
of  everything  holy.  Virginia  erects  her  gibbet,  repul- 
sive in  name  and  form.  One  man  goes  up  from  it  to 
God,  with  two  hundred  thousand  broken  fetters  in  his 
hands,  and  henceforth  it  is  sacred  forever. 

I  said  that,  to  vindicate  Puritanism,  the  children  must 
be  better  than  the  fathers.  Lo,  this  event !  Brewster 
and  Carver  and  Bradford  and  Winthrop  faced  a  New 
England  winter  and  defied  law  for  themselves.  For  us, 
their  children,  they  planted  and  sowed.  They  said, — 
"  Lo !  our  rights  are  trodden  under  foot ;  our  cradles 
are  not  safe ;  our  prayers  may  not  ascend  to  God." 
They  formed  a  State,  and  achieved  that  liberty.  John 
Brown  goes  a  stride  beyond  them.  Under  his  own  roof, 
he  might  pray  at  liberty  ;  his  own  children  wore  no 
fetters.  In  the  catalogue  of  Saxon  heroes  and  martyrs, 
the  Ridleys  and  the  Latimers,  he  only  saw  men  dying 
for  themselves ;  in  the  brave  souls  of  our  own  day,  he 
saw  men  good  as  their  fathers ;  but  he  leaped  beyond 
them,  and  died  for  a  race  whose  blood  he  did  not  share. 
This  child  of  seventeen  years  gives  her  husband  for  a 
race  into  whose  eyes  she  never  looked.  Braver  than 
Carver  or  Winthrop,  more  disinterested  than  Bradford, 
broader  than  Hancock  or  Washington,  pure  as  the 
brightest  names  on  our  catalogue,  nearer  God's  heart, 
for,  with  a  divine  magnanimity  he  comprehended  all 
races, — Ridley  and  Latimer  minister  before  him.  He 
sits  in  that  heaven  of  which  he  showed  us  the  open 
door,  with  the  great  men  of  Saxon  blood  ministering 


308          THE   PURITAN   PRINCIPLE    AND    JOHN    BROWN. 

below  his  feet.  And  yet  they  have  a  right  to  say,  "  We 
created  him." 

Lord  Bacon,  as  he  takes  his  march  down  the  centuries, 
may  put  one  hand  on  the  telegraph,  and  the  other  on 
the  steam  engine,  and  say,  "  These  are  mine,  for  I  taught 
you  to  invent."  So  the  Puritans  may  put  one  hand  on 
John  Brown  and  say,  "  You  are  ours,  though  you  have 
gone  beyond  us,  for  we  taught  you  to  believe  in  God. 
We  taught  you  to  say,  God  is  God,  and  trample  wicked 
laws  under  your  feet."  And  now  from  that  Virginia 
gibbet,  he  says  to  us,  "  The  maxim  I  taught  you,  prac- 
tise it !  The  principle  I  have  manifested  to  you,  apply 
it !  If  the  crisis  becomes  sterner,  meet  it !  If  the  battle 
is  closer,  be  true  to  my  memory  !  Men  say  my  act  was 
a  failure.  I  showed  what  I  promised,  that  the  slave 
ought  to  resist,  and  could.  Sixteen  men  I  placed  under 
the  shelter  of  English  law,  and  then  I  taught  the  mil- 
lions. Prove  that  my  enterprise  was  not  a  failure,  by 
showing  a  North  ready  to  stand  behind  it.  I  am  willing, 
in  God's  service,  to  plunge  with  ready  martyrdom  into 
the  chasm  that  opens  in  the  forum,  only  show  yourselves 
worthy  to  stand  upon  my  grave !  " 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  the  lesson  of  Puritanism, 
as  it  is  read  to  us  to-day.  "  Law  and  order  "  are  only 
names  for  the  halting  ignorance  of  the  last  generation. 
John  Brown  is  the  impersonation  of  God's  order  and 
God's  law,  moulding  a  better  future,  and  setting  it  for 
an  example. 


THE   EDUCATION   OF  THE  PEOPLE. 


Address  delivered  in  the  Representatives'  Chamber,  Boston,  March 
10,  1859. 

In  connection  with  this  lecture  the  following  remarks  of  Mr.  Phillips 
in  regard  to  our  public  school  methods  of  instruction  may  well  find 
place.  They  were  delivered  in  Boston,  in  December,  1876  .  — 

a  The  public  schools  teach  her  arithmetic,  philosophy,  trigonometry, 
geometry,  music,  botany,  and  history,  and  all  that  class  of  knowl- 
edge. Seven  out  of  ten  of  them,  remember,  are  to  earn  their  bread 
by  the  labor  of  their  hands.  Well,  at  fifteen  we  give  that  child 
back  to  her  parents  utterly  unfitted  for  any  kind  of  work  that  is 
worth  a  morsel  of  bread.  If  the  pupil  could  only  read  the  ordinary 
newspaper  to  three  auditors  it  would  be  something,  but  this  the 
scholar,  so  educated,  so  produced,  cannot  do.  I  repeat  it.  Four 
fifths  of  the  girls  you  present  to  society  at  fifteen  cannot  read  a 
page  intelligibly.  We  produce  only  the  superficial  result  of  the 
culture  we  strive  for. 

u  Now  I  claim  that  this  kind  of  education  injures  the  boy  or  girl  in 
at  least  three  ways.  First,  they  are  able  only  by  forgetting  what 
they  have  learned  to  earn  their  day's  bread;  in  the  second  place,  it 
is  earned  reluctantly  ;  third,  there  is  no  ambition  for  perfection 
aroused. 

"  It  seems  to  be  a  fact  which  many  of  the  public  educators  of  to-day 
overlook,  that  seven  tenths  of  the  people  born  into  the  world  earn 
their  living  on  matter  and  not  on  mind.  Now,  friends,  I  protest 
against  this  whofe  system  of  common  schools  in  Massachusetts.  It 
lacks  the  first  element  of  preparation  for  life.  We  take  the  young 
girl  or  the  young  boy  whose  parents  are  able  to  lift  them  into  an  in- 
tellectual profession  ;  we  keep  them  until  they  are  eighteen  years  old 
in  the  high  schools ;  we  teach  them  the  sciences ;  they  go  to  the 


310         THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 

academy  or  the  college  to  pursue  some  course  of  preparation  for  their 
presumed  work  through  life.  Why  not  keep  them  a  little  longer 
and  give  them  other  than  intellectual  training  for  the  business  of 
life  f  " 

MR.  CHAIRMAN  :  I  have  never  been  present  at  any  of 
your  meetings,  and  am  not  well  informed  as  to 
their  precise  purpose.  I  may,  therefore,  step  aside  from 
the  platform  accorded  to  you  in  the  remarks  I  am  to 
offer.  I  cannot  expect,  either,  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
to  present  to  you,  on  the  topic  of  to-night,  anything  like 
the  comprehensive  views  or  the  varied  and  exquisite  illus- 
trations which  the  speakers  of  the  last  week  gave  you  on 
a  kindred  topic.  They  are  rare  men  and  have  had  rare 
opportunities.  I  am  sorry  to  remember,  even  though  it 
be  to  their  honor,  how  much  rarer  still  it  is  to  find 
such  men  coining  forward  to  aid  in  meetings  like  these. 
I  suppose  your  intention  is  to  touch  all  sides  of 
the  question  of  Popular  Education,  and  with  especial 
reference,  so  far  as  outsiders  may,  to  some  of  the  plans 
which  engage  the  attention  of  the  community  and  of 
the  legislature  at  this  moment,  —  plans  of  vast  public 
improvement ;  plans  of  generous  State  aid  toward  great 
interests  of  the  public ;  plans  intended  to  make  Boston 
the  leading  city  of  the  Union,  in  regard  to  some  of  those 
intellectual  gratifications  and  scientific  attractions  which 
our  country  so  much  lacks,  which  would  subserve,  not 
only  the  honor,  but  the  interest  of  the  State,  if  that  is 
to  be  considered.  Some  call  the  Yankee  blood  niggard, 
and  think  we  look  with  suspicion  upon  such  plans  of 
public  expense.  '  For  one,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  doubt  that. 
I  think  we  have  fairly  earned,  we  New  Englanders,  the 
character  of  generous  patrons  of  all  things  that  really 
claim  public  support.  They  call  us  "  pedlers,"  "  huck- 
sters ; "  we  are  said  to  look  upon  both  sides  of  a  dollar, 
and  all  round  the  rim,  before  we  spend  it ;  and  yet  I 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         811 

undertake  to  say,  that  in  this  very  "  niggardly  New 
England,"  there  have  been,  and  are.  not  only  the  most 
iivnerous  efforts  for  the  widest  education,  for  the  readiest 
relief,  for  the  most  lavish  endowment  of  all  institutions 
for  the  public,  but  we  have  set  the  world  the  first  exam- 
ple in  many  of  these. 

I  believe  it  would  be  found,  that  if  we  compared  New 
England,  I  will  not  say  with  the  rest  of  the  Union,  —  for 
she  may  justly  disdain  such  comparison,  —  but  with 
England  itself,  with  any  country,  it  would  be  found  that 
a  greater  proportion,  a  larger  percentage  of  private 
wealth,  since  its  foundation,  had  been  given  and  pledged 
to  matters  of  public  concern,  than  anywhere  else  in  the 
world.  We  are  educated  in  that  faith.  Money-giving 
is  the  fashion,  —  provided  you  choose  popular  objects. 
Indeed,  to  give  is  so  much  a  matter  expected  and  of 
course,  that  the  rich  man's  will  which  is  opened  in  the 
latitude  of  Boston,  or  its  neighborhood,  and  found  not 
to  contain  ample  legacies  for  great  public  objects,  is  set 
down  as  singular,  odd,  —  so  singular  as  to  be  marked 
with  the  stigma  of  public  rebuke.  It  is  so  much  a 
fashion,  that  it  takes  a  peculiar  obstinacy  of  stinginess 
even  to  hide  itself  in  the  grave  without  giving  more  than 
the  Jewish  tenth  to  the  public. 

If,  therefore,  the  projects  of  State  aid  to  great  public 
intellectual  and  moral  purposes  should  result  —  which  I 
doubt  —  in  expense  to  the  State,  they  would  be  justified 
by  the  whole  tone  of  the  past  history  of  Massachusetts, 
and  welcomed  with  proud  satisfaction  by  the  commu- 
nity. I  think  we  have  only  reached  a  new  level  in  the 
gradual  rising  of  public  feeling.  Every  year,  —  at  least 
every  decade,  every  generation,  certainly,  —  originates 
a  new  step ;  the  standpoint  rises  ;  we  look  at  things 
from  a  different  point  of  view.  We  have  reached  one 
now,  when  it  begins  to  be  claimed  of  government  and 


312  THE    EDUCATION    OF   THE    PEOPLE. 

private  individuals,  that  all  their  wealth  belongs  to  the 
public ;  that  it  is  mortgaged  for  the  education  of  every 
child  among  us ;  that  God  gave  it  for  mankind.  I  look 
upon  the  State,  or  rather  I  look  upon  society,  com- 
posed of  the  religious  and  civil  organizations  —  the 
one  represented  here,  the  other  represented  in  the 
churches  —  as  a  great  Normal  School.  I  think  the 
men  who  occupy  these  benches  day  by  day  are  mere 
schoolmasters  for  the  State.  Their  object  is  to  arrange 
the  best  method  to  unfold  and  carry  forward  the  public 
mind. 

The  friend  who  has  just  taken  his  seat,  Isaac  F. 
Shepard,  Esq.,  has  alluded  to  Greece.  It  reminds  me 
that  there  were  two  civilizations  in  the  old  time,  —  one 
was  Egyptian,  the  other  was  Greek.  The  Egyptian 
kept  its  knowledge  for  priests  and  nobles.  Science  hid 
itself  in  the  cloister ;  it  was  confined  to  the  aristocracy. 
Knowledge  was  the  organ  .of  despotism  ;  it  was  the 
secret  of  the  upper  classes  ;  it  was  the  engine  of  govern- 
ment ;  it  was  used  to  over-awe  the  people ;  and  when 
Cambyses  came  down  from  Persia,  and  thundered  across 
Egypt,  treading  out  under  his  horse's  hoofs  royalty  and 
priesthood,  he  trod  out  science  and  civilization  at  the 
same  time.  The  other  side  of  the  picture  is  Greece. 
Her  civilization  was  democratic.  It  was  for  the  mob 
of  Athens,  so  to  speak,  that  Pericles  spoke  and  planned  ; 
that  the  tragedian  wrote ;  that  the  historian  elaborated, 
in  his  seven  years'  labor,  those  perfect  pictures  of  times 
and  states  and  policies.  It  was  for  the  people  that  the 
games,  the  theatres,  the  treasures  of  art,  and  the  records 
of  learning  were  kept.  It  busied  itself  witli  every  man 
in  the  market-place,  day  by  day;  and  the  scholar  thought 
life  wasted  if  he  did  not  hear,  at  the  moment,  the  echo 
and  the  amen  to  his  labors  in  the  appreciation  of  the 
market-place.  The  Greek  trusted  the  people  ;  he  laid 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         313 

himself,  full  length,  on  the  warm  heart  of  the  mob,  the 
masses. 

Anacharsis  came  to  Greece,  and  they  asked  him 
what  he  thought  of  the  Greek  Democracy,  when  he 
had  heard  the  orators  argue  and  seen  the  people,  vote. 
The  faithful  scholar,  with  that  same  timidity  which 
marks  the  fastidious  scholarship  of  to-day,  replied,  "  1 
think  that  wise  men  argue  questions  and  fools  decide 
them."  It  was  a  scholar's  judgment.  But  you  sit  here 
to-day  with  the  science  of  Egypt  —  its  exclusive,  fas- 
tidious, timid,  conservative  science  —  buried  in  the 
oblivion  of  two  thousand  years  ;  and  you  live  to-day 
with  a  hundred  idioms  of  speech  borrowed,  all  your  art 
copied  from  Greece,  your  institutions  shaped  largely  on 
her  model,  and  your  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  influenced 
by  the  hearts  that  throbbed  in  that  mob  of  Athens,  two 
thousand  years  ago  !  [Applause.]  Our  civilization  takes 
its  shape  from  the  Greek,  —  it  is  for  the  people.  There 
was  no  private  wealth,  there  was  no  private  interest  in 
Greece ;  it  was  all  for  one  commonwealth ;  and  such 
should  be  ours  to-day. 

Government,  I  say,  is  a  school.  Two  thousand  years 
ago  all  government  thought  of  was  to  build  up  its  gal- 
lows. Fine  and  death  we^e  its  two  punishments  ;  it 
knew  no  other.  To  use  Bulwer's  figure,  it  put  up  the 
gallows  at  the  end  of  the  road,  and  allowed  men  to  stray 
as  they  might.  We  have  gone  on  two  thousand  years, 
and  now  we  put  a  guide-board  at  the  beginning,  saying, 
"  This  is  the  wrong  road."  We  educate  men.  We  have 
added  disgrace,  disfranchisement,  imprisonment,  moral 
restraint,  rewards,  and  many  other  things  to  our  list  of 
instruments.  Government  is  beginning  to  remember 
that  prevention  is  one  of  its  great  objects.  It  begins  to 
remember  that  it  does  not  get  the  right  to  hang,  until 
it  has  discharged  the  duty  of  education ;  that  until  it 


314  THE    EDUCATION    OF    THE    PEOPLE. 

has  held  up  the  baby  footsteps  with  knowledge  and 
moral  culture,  it  has  no  right  to  arrest  the  full-grown 
sinner,  and  strangle  him. 

Now,  that  idea  broadens  with  every  year.  What  is 
Education  ?  It  is  not  simply  books.  There  is  another 
idea  that  is  dawning  before  us.  We  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  study  only  books.  I  believe  every  observing 
man  will  agree  with  me,  that  the  day  is  dawning  when 
we  are  to  study  things,  not  books  only.  I  do  not  mean 
that  we  are  to  lay  aside  books.  We  are  not  to  give  up 
languages  and  history,  and  studies  of  that  class,  but 
I  think  that  the  study  of  things  is  to  be  grafted  upon 
these.  God's  works,  —  the  beautiful  in  objects,  the 
curious  and  useful  in  science,  the  great  relations  be- 
tween the  sciences,  the  laws  which  govern  national 
development,  the  conditions  of  health  and  disease, 
the  growth  of  population,  the  laws  which  crime  and 
accident  obey,  the  material  interests  of  society,  —  the 
handiwork  of  God  and  his  laws,  the  day  is  dawning, 
I  think,  when  education  will  turn  largely  in  that  direc- 
tion. The  people  claim  of  government  that  it  should 
provide  these  museums  of  things;  that  it  should,  "  taking 
time  by  the  forelock,"  gather  up  all  these  living  books 
that  God  has  made  for  the  education  of  the  people,  and 
preserve  them.  Science,  the  history  of  science,  the 
details  of  it,  as  preserved  in  museums,  —  these  are 
beginning  to  be,  especially  with  us,  the  objects  of  study. 
They  affect  legislation  closely.  No  man  is  up  to  the 
van  of  his  age,  if  he  has  not,  at  least,  a  general  knowl- 
edge of  these  relations ;  he  is  not  fit  to  sit  in  this  hall 
and  legislate  about  them. 

If  you  will  take  up  Brougham's  discourse  on  "  The 
Advantages  and  Pleasures  of  Science,"  or  Herschel's, 
or  that  of  any  English  scholar,  you  will  find  that  they 
point  to  the  pleasure  and  the  moral  growth  which  the 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.          315 

individual  finds  in  the  pursuit  of  science.  We  have 
a  broader  interest.  The  young  men  of  New  England, 
as  a  general  thing,  are  tossed  into  life  before  twenty. 
Their  fathers  cannot  afford  them  long  schooling.  After 
the  training  of  a  few  years,  "  the  narrow  means  at  home," 
as  the  Roman  poet  says,  the  keen  wants  of  the  family, 
oblige  them  to  launch  into  life,  after  having  gathered 
what  they  can  in  a  few  short  years  from  books.  And 
these  very  men,  snatching  education  from  the  wayside, 
their  minds  developed  one-sidedly,  perhaps,  by  too  close 
attention  to  the  immediate  calling  which  earns  their 
bread,  are  to  come  up  to  this  hall,  and  be  trusted  with 
the  various  interests,  the  great  necessities,  and  the  honor 
of  the  Commonwealth.  It  is,  then,  for  the  interest  of 
the  Commonwealth,  that  all  along  their  wayside  should 
be  planted  the  means  of  a  wider  education,  the  provoca- 
tives of  thought. 

I  will  tell  you  what  I  mean,  Suppose  to-day  you  go 
to  Paris.  (I  am  not  now  touching  on  the  motives  that 
make  governments  liberal  ;  we  may  have  one  motive, 
a  despotic  government  may  have  another.)  But  sup- 
pose you  go  to  Paris.  In  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  there, 
as  it  is  technically  called,  you  may  find  a  museum 
of  mineralogy  ;  in  the  acres  under  cultivation,  you  may 
find  every  plant,  every  tree  possible  of  growth  in  the 
climate  of  France ;  in  other  departments,  every  animal 
that  can  be  domesticated  from  the  broad  surface  of  the 
globe  ;  so  that  the  children  of  the  poor  man,  without  fee, 
—  he  himself,  in  his  leisure,  —  may  study  these  related 
sciences  as  much  in  detail,  and  with  as  much  thorough- 
ness, as  one  half  of  men  can  study  them  in  books,  and 
better  than  the  other  half  can  study  them  at  all,  in  the 
actual  living  representative.  The  very  atmosphere  of 
such  scenes  is  education.  People  are  not  able  even  to 
live,  even  to  stand  among  the  evidences  of  the  labors, 


316  THE    EDUCATION    OP   THE   PEOPLE. 

among  the  collected  intellectual  fruits  of  their  fellows, 
without  tasting  something  of  education.  If  I  were, 
therefore,  speaking  simply  as  a  Massachusetts  citizen, 
with  my  future  interest  in  the  hands  of  a  democratic 
legislature,  chosen  from  among  the  people,  I  should 
claim  of  the  wealth  of  the  State,  of  the  wealth  of  the 
wealthiest,  that  it  was  all  mortgaged,  not  for  ordinary 
schools  merely,  not  for  book  culture,  not  even  for  the 
costly  apparatus  of  university  life,  but  that,  in  the 
crowded  thoroughfares  of  cities,  there  should  be  thrown 
open  to  the  public,  in  every  large  crowd  of  popula- 
tion, the  means  of  studying  the  great  sciences  of  the  day. 

If  I  asked  it  for  nothing  else,  I  would  ask  it  as  wise 
policy  for  the  future.  I  believe  in  it  as  education.  As 
simple,  individual  education,  I  believe  in  it  —  I  believe 
in  it  as  thoroughly,  and  for  the  same  ends,  as  those 
Englishmen  to  whom  I  have  referred.  I  welcome  it  as 
such.  I  know  its  influence.  I  believe  that  the  dissipated 
young  man  of  Boston  who  goes  to  Paris  to  spend  his 
three  years,  has  fifty  chances  out  of  a  hundred  to  come 
back  a  better  moral  man  from  the  fact  that  his  nature 
derives  the  needed  stimulus  from  causes  which  call 
out  his  mind  and  better  feelings,  —  for  we  can,  none  of 
us,  get  along  without  some  stimulus.  In  our  country, 
there  are  only  three  sources  of  stimulus,  as  a  general 
thing  :  One  is,  the  keen  zest  of  money-making  ;  the 
other  is  the  intense  excitement  of  politics ;  and  if  a  man 
cannot  throw  himself  into  either  of  these  he  takes  to 
drinking.  [Laughter  and  applause.]  It  is  no  marvel 
that  there  is  so  much  dissipation  among  us ;  for  every 
human  being  must  have  his  pleasure,  must  have  his 
excitement.  One  man  snatches  it  in  ambition,  another 
man  hives  it  in  close  pursuit  of  wealth,  and  in  pecuni- 
ary success. 

There  was  a  time  when  it  seemed  almost  providential 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         317 

that  our  race  should  have  the  keen  edge  of  money  - 
loving.  We  were  to  conquer  the  continent.  God  set 
us  to  subdue  the  wilderness.  We  were  to  dot  America 
with  cities  and  States ;  we  were  to  marry  the  oceans 
with  roads.  Two  generations  have  almost  done  it. 
That  function  could  be  discharged  only  under  the  keen 
stimulus  of  a  love  of  pecuniary  and  material  gain.  God 
gave  it  to  us  for  that  purpose.  I  never  blushed  for  the 
Yankee's  love  for  the  "Almighty  Dollar;"  it  was  no 
fault  in  the  age  of  it.  But  now,  we  may  say,  we  have 
built  our  London  and  our  Paris,  we  have  finished  our 
Rome  and  our  Vienna,  and  the  time  has  come  to  crowd 
them  witli  art,  to  flush  them  with  the  hues  of  painting, 
and  fill  them  with  museums  of  science,  and  all  to  create 
and  feed  a  keen  appetite  for  intellectual  culture  and 
progress  among  the  people.  [Applause.] 

In  this  very  city,  in  one  ward,  in  one  of  the  months 
of  the  past  year,  six  hundred  families  were  relieved  by 
public  aid,  and  mostly  because  their  heads  were  intem- 
perate,—  nigh  twenty-five  hundred  persons  out  of  a 
population  of  fourteen  thousand.  I  verily  believe  that 
if  those  six  hundred  heads  of  families,  in  their  hours  of 
leisure,  in  their  moments  not  necessary  for  toil,  could 
have  been  lured,  as  the  Italian  is,  into  gardens,  could 
have  had  thrown  open  to  them,  as  the  Frenchman  has, 
museums,  teaching  him  history  at  a  glance,  as  in  the 
galleries  of  the  Louvre,  their  families  would  not  have 
been  left  to  the  hand  of  public  charity.  The  citizen 
of  Paris,  without  a  sou,  after  laboring  at  fifty  cents  a 
day  the  week  through,  may  have,  on  Saturday  or  Sunday, 
his  nature  elevated,  the  needed  stimulus  supplied  with- 
out liquor,  by  entering  a  museum  in  which,  if  he  has 
the  taste,  he  shall  see  every  form  of  ship  ever  built,  from 
the  first  frail  canoe  that  ever  floated,  to  the  last  steamer 
that  defied  the  elements ;  every  species  of  arms,  from 


318          THE  EDUCATION  GP  THE  PEOPLE. 

the  first  rude  arrow  made  by  a  Greek  or  Egyptian  hand, 
down  through  the  Middle  Ages,  to  the  last  revolver  that 
Yankee  skill  has  lent  to  war ;  every  form  of  furniture, 
if  he  chooses  to  turn  there ;  every  plan  of  a  city,  ancient 
or  modern  ;  every  bone,  every  fact  of  anatomy  illustrated 
for  him.  The  very  share  our  institutions  give  to  each 
man  in  the  government,  the  responsibility  we  lay  on  him 
will  call  out,  more  than  anywhere  else  has  been  mani- 
fested, an  eager  love  for  these  things. 

It  is  but  just  to  say,  that  our  community  has  made 
most  readily  the  amplest  use  of  all  means  provided  by 
government  or  individuals.  In  our  libraries,  books  wear 
out  in  using ;  and  no  complaint  is  made  anywhere  of 
want  of  popular  interest  in  any  scientific  collection.  You 
know  not  how  the  taste  grows  by  the  feeding.  We 
sometimes  forget  how  the  sight  of  these  stores  unfolds  a 
taste  which  the  man  himself  never  dreamed  he  possessed. 
He  gazes,  and,  lo !  he  too  is  a  thinker  and  a  student, 
instead  of  a  half-wakened  brute,  born  only,  as  the  Roman 
says,  "  to  consume  the  fruits  of  the  earth."  He  no  longer 
merely  digs  or  cumbers  the  ground,  or  hangs  a  dead 
weight  on  some  braver  soul.  He  thinks  —  and  his  spread- 
ing pinion  lifts  his  fellows.  Mr.  Waterston  taught  this 
in  the  anecdote  he  mentioned,  of  a  glance  at  Franklin's 
urn  first  revealing  to  Greenough  that  he  was  a  sculptor. 
You  know  the  great  John  Hunter,  the  head  of  English 
surgery,  constructed  with  his  own  hands  a  museum  of 
comparative  anatomy  a  hundred  feet  long,  and  every 
spot  filled  with  some  specimen  which  his  own  hands  had 
preserved  in  the  leisure  of  a  large  city  practice.  A  lady 
once  asked  him,  "  Mr.  Hunter,  what  do  you  think  is  to 
be  our  occupation  in  heaven  ? "  "I  do  not  know," 
replied  the  old  man ;  "  I  cannot  tell  what  we  shall  do 
there;  but  if  the  Almighty  God  would  grant  me  the 
liberty  to  sit  and  think,  for  eternity,  of  his  wonderful 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.          319 

works  that  I  have  seen  in  forty  years,  I  could  be  happy 
as  long  as  eternity  lasted."      [Applause.] 

It  is  impossible  to  trace  the  results  of  such  provoca- 
tives of  thought  as  these.  A  name  which  the  previous 
.speaker  used  gives  me  an  illustration  pertinent  to  the 
occasion.  He  spoke  of  one  who  has  just  left  our  shores, 
a  man  eminent  in  every  good  work,  —  Dr.  Bowditch. 
You  know  his  family  story.  His  father  was  a  poor 
boy,  one  of  those  whose  early  privations  and  need 
after-tfhie  gathers  up  with  loving  and  grateful  admi- 
ration. It  chanced  that  one  of  the  privateers  of  Essex 
county  brought  in,  as  a  prize,  the  extensive  library  of 
Dr.  Kirwan,  —  a  scientific  man.  It  was  given  to  the 
public  by  the  generosity  of  the  merchants  of  Salem, 
and  so  became  open  to  young  Bowditch.  He  was  left 
to  avail  himself  at  will  of  this  magazine  of  science. 
The  boy  grew  into  a  man  ;  wife  and  children  were 
about  him,  and  moderate  wealth  in  his  hands.  La 
Place  published  his  sublime  work,  which  it  is  said 
only  twenty  men  in  the  world  can  read.  With  patient 
toil,  with  a  brain  which  that  early  devotion  had  made 
strong,  he  mastered  its  contents  ;  and  was  the  first 
among  the  twenty  to  open  that  great  commentary  on 
the  works  of  God  to  every  man  who  reads  the  English 
language,  by  translating  it  into  our  tongue,  and  supply- 
ing, with  adroit  and  skilful  industry,  the  steps  by  which 
the  humblest  student  in  mathematics  may  follow  the 
giant  strides  of  La  Place.  The  expense  of  publishing 
a  work  which  so  few  would  buy,  would  take  half  of  his 
fortune.  That  life  had  in  part  educated,  perhaps,  his 
wife  to  the  same  high-souled  determination  which  ani- 
mated him.  He  said  to  her,  "  Shall  we  give  our  wealth 
to  this  service  for  posterity,  shall  we  give  it  to  our  boys, 
or  spend  it  in  the  pleasures  of  life?"  "Publish,"  was 
the  wife's  reply.  He  consecrated  half  his  fortune  to  the 


320  THE    EDUCATION   OF   THE   PEOPLE. 

service  of  the  future  and  the  distant,  to  the  student,  and 
left  to  his  children  only  education  and  example.  They 
stand  now  around  us,  eminent  in  every  profession,  and 
equally  eminent  for  the  same  enthusiastic  devotion, 
and  the  same  prodigal  liberality  in  every  good  cause. 
How  proud  might  the  State  be,  if,  by  opening  similar 
libraries  and  museums,  she  educated  a  community  of 
Bowditches,  fathers  of  such  children  in  the  generations 
to  come  !  [Loud  applause.] 

There  is  another  consideration.  I  will  not  pursue 
this  subject,  merely  on  this  level ;  I  will  present  even 
a  lower  one,  if  you  please.  I  mean  to  come  down  to 
the  business  level.  We  never  shall  compete  with  New 
York  in  the  allurements  of  a  great  city  life.  As  far  as 
magnificent  spectacles,  as  far  as  metropolitan  wealth, 
as  far  as  the  splendors  and  amusements  of  the  world 
are  concerned,  the  great  focal  metropolis  of  the  Empire, 
New  York,  must  always  outdo  us,  in  drawing  vast  num- 
bers of  business  men  and  strangers  to  enter  her  streets. 
She  can  make  the  tide  set  that  way  constantly,  and  turn 
New  England  into  a  dependency  on  her  great  central 
power.  But  it  lies  with  Boston  to  create  an  attraction 
only  second  to  hers.  The  blood  of  the  Puritans,  the  old 
New  England  peculiarities,  can  never  compete  with  the 
Parisian  life  of  New  York.  But  if  we  create  here  a 
great  intellectual  centre  by  our  museums,  by  our  scien- 
tific opportunities,  if  we  become  really  "  the  Athens  of 
America,"  as  we  assume  to  be,  if  we  guard  and  preserve 
the  precious  gatherings  of  science  now  with  us,  we  shall 
attract  here  a  large  class  of  intelligent  and  cultivated 
men,  and  thus  do  something  to  counterbalance  the  over- 
shadowing influence  of  the  great  metropolis.  Why,  here 
is  the  museum  in  Mason  Street,  which  has  laid  a  petition 
upon  the  table  of  this  House  to-day,  possessed  of  treas- 
ures which,  if  lost,  no  skill,  no  industry,  would  replace, 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         321 

giving  to  the  geological  and  natural  history  of  New 
England  contributions  which,  if  once  lost,  cannot  be 
regained ;  treasures  visited,  weekly,  by  crowds  from  our 
schools.  They  should  be  covered  safely  and  extended, 
if  we  would  do  what  New  York  has  done  already.  I 
went,  in  Albany,  lately  to  a  noble  building  which  the 
Empire  State  has  furnished,  dedicated  to  this  :  she 
means  that  every  ore,  every  plant,  every  shell,  every 
living  or  extinct  animal,  every  tree,  on  the  surface  or  in 
the  bowels  of  the  Empire  State,  shall  be  represented 
in  that  Museum,  for  the  study  of  her  sons.  They  shall 
find  the  fauna  and  the  flora  there ;  they  shall  find  the 
living  and  the  dead  of  the  State  represented.  It  re- 
mained awhile,  —  so  the  custodian,  Colonel  Jewett,  told 
me,  —  for  some  five  or  seven  years,  without  provision  for 
its  shelter  and  safe-keeping,  and  one  half  its  treasures 
were  lost.  They  have  placed  it  to-day  beyond  risk. 
They  have  done  it  in  order  to  excite  the  curiosity  and 
appreciation  of  their  sons  ;  they  have  given  them  the 
natural  and  scientific  map  of  the  State  to  study  ;  they 
have  called  out  their  latent  capacity  for  science ;  they 
have  set  an  example  for  other  cities  ;  they  have  done 
thus  much  to  educate  the  people. 

There  is  education  in  the  very  sight  of  things  about 
us.  I  believe  in  the  sentiment  which  would  preserve 
yonder  Hancock  House ;  for  the  very  sight  of  such  a 
monument  is  a  book  pregnant  with  thought  to  the  peo- 
ple that  pass  by  it.  A  man  of  one  mould  has,  of  course, 
no  right  to  regard  a  man  of  another  mould  as  neces- 
sarily his  inferior.  But  this  much  surely  we  may  be 
allowed,  to  hold  that  philosophy  as  cold  and  heartless 
which  "  conducts  us  indifferent  and  unmoved  over  any 
ground  which  has  been  dignified  by  piety  or  valor." 
Certainly  that  profound  sentiment  which  makes  the 
past  live  for  us  in  the  scenes  consecrated  to  the  noble 

21 


322         THE  EDUCATION  OP  THE  PEOPLE. 

servants  and  great  events  of  our  race  ;  which  deepens 
our  sense  of  obligation  to  the  future  by  showing  us  our 
debt  to  the  past ;  which  changes  our  little  life  here,  from 
an  isolated  instant  into  the  connecting  link  between  two 
eternities ;  which  lifts  the  low  window  of  some  humble 
dwelling,  and  lets  the  genius  of  the  past  enter,  till  its 
walls  expand  into  a  palace,  and  we  see  written  "  in 
glowing  letters  over  all,"  the  courage  or  virtue,  the  toil 
or  self-devotion,  which  have  made  our  daily  life  safer  or 
more  noble ;  which  calls  into  being,  amid  the  desert  of 
low  cares  and  dull  necessities,  an  oasis,  —  and  so  forces 
us,  even  when  most  hurried  or  smothered  in  dust,  to 
think  and  feel  — 

" till  the  place 

Becomes  religion,  and  the  heart  runs  o'er 
With  silent  worship  of  the  great  of  old,  — 
The  dead  but  sceptred  sovereigns  who  still  rule 
Our  spirits  from  their  urns." 

For  this  sentiment,  no  one  need  blush ;  and  often  as  it 
has  been  perverted,  much  as  it  has  been  abused,  I  believe 
in  it  as  the  mother  of  much  that  is  beautiful,  as  a  staff 
to  resolution,  as  an  incentive  to  virtue,  as  a  pulse  of  that 
full  being  which  lives  in  us  when  we  are  nearest  to  God. 
[Applause.] 

A  few  years  ago,  I  was  in  Chicago,  and  they  showed 
me,  in  the  very  centre  of  her  stately  streets,  the  original 
log-cabin  in  which  General  Dearborn  lived,  before  any 
other  white  man,  save  himself,  drew*  breath  upon  that 
spot,  now  covered  by  the  Queen  of  the  West.  It  stood 
in  its  original,  untouched,  primeval  condition,  —  the 
dark-stained,  natural  wood  of  the  forest.  On  all  sides 
of  it  rose  the  splendid  palaces  of  the  young  queen  of 
western  cities,  —  the  lavish  outpouring  of  the  rapidly 
increasing  wealth  of  the  lakes.  Roofs  that  covered 
depots,  hotels,  houses  of  commerce  rivalling  any  to  be 


THE   EDUCATION    OP   THE   PEOPLE.  323 

found  in  the  spacious  magnificence  of  Europe,  were 
within  a  biscuit's  throw  of  the  spot ;  while  that  very 
evening  were  celebrated  the  nuptials,  in  her  twenty- 
first  year,  of  the  first  child  born  on  that  spot  where 
stands  now  a  city  of  sixty  thousand  inhabitants. 

It  was  the  original  ark  of  the  city  ;  it  was  the  spot 
where  her  Romulus  first  drew  breath  ;  it  was  the  cradle 
of  her  history.  No  capital  in  the  world  ever  had  such 
an  opportunity  of  saying,  when  a  hundred  years  old,  to 
her  million  sons,  "  Behold  the  first  roof  that  told  the 
forest  man  had  taken  possession ! "  To-day  it  has  van- 
ished !  There  was  not  education,  there  was  not  senti- 
ment, there  was  not  historic  interest,  there  was  not  that 
manhood  which  marries  the  past  and  the  future  and 
raises  us  above  the  brutes,  —  there  was  not  enough  of 
it  in  the  young  civilization  of  the  West  to  save  that 
unique  specimen,  testifying  by  its  very  presence  to  the 
growth,  in  a  night,  of  the  city  of  the  lakes,  to  save 
from  the  greed  of  speculation  or  the  roar  of  trade  a 
spot  full  of  such  interest  to  every  thoughtful  mind ! 

Would  you  like  Boston  to  be  subject  to  such  criticism 
as  that  ?  Is  there  not  an  education  of  the  heart  of  which 
it  shows  a  lack  ?  Evidently  there  is.  Such  public 
treasures,  open  to  all,  work  for  us  all  the  time.  If  you 
should  go  and  stand,  for  instance,  in  Florence,  and  see 
the  peasant  walking  amid  a  gallery  of  beautiful  sculp- 
ture, or  wandering  through  the  gardens  of  princes,  sur- 
rounded with  every  exotic  and  every  form  of  beauty 
in  marble  and  bronze,  you  would  see  the  reason  why 
the  Italian  drinks  in  the  love  of  the  beautiful,  until  it 
becomes  a  part  of  him,  without  his  thinking  of  it.  So 
I  think  that  the  very  sight  of  yonder  Public  Library, 
even  to  the  man  who  does  not  enter  its  alcoves,  con- 
tributes to  the  growth,  expansion,  and  elevation  of  his 
mind.  He  remembers,  at  least,  that  some  men  have 


324  THE   EDUCATION   OF   THE   PEOPLE. 

recognized  that  duty  to  the  minds  of  their  fellows,  and 
it  raises  him  for  a  moment.  Direct  study  is  only  half. 
The  influences  we  drink  in  as  we  live  and  move,  do  even 
more  to  mould  us.  It  is  not  till  these  do  their  full 
work  that  the  character  is  formed.  Argument  is  not 
half  so  strong  as  habit.  A  truth  is  often  proved  long 
before  it  is  felt.  A  man  is  convinced  long  before  he  is 
converted.  Constant,  habitual,  and  often  slight  influ- 
ences give  us  shape  and  direction.  Whately  lias  well 
said  there  is  more  truth  than  men  think  in  Dogberry's 
solemn  rebuke,  "  Masters,  it  is  proved  already  that  you 
are  little  better  than  false  knaves,  and  it  will  go  near  to 
be  thought  so  shortly." 

I  had  supposed  that  I  should  have  given  place  before 
this,  to  one  who  would  have  addressed  you  in  detail,  and 
more  specifically,  in  reference  to  the  plans  which  engage 
the  attention  of  the  public ;  but  I  do  not  see  the  gentle- 
man who  has  been  announced  as  one  of  the  speakers 
this  evening,  Mr.  J.  A.  Andrew,  before  me,  and  perhaps, 
as  we  have  reached  the  hour  at  which  these  meetings 
usually  close,  it  will  be  proper  for  us  to  adjourn,  leaving 
that  particular  branch  of  the  subject  untouched  and 
fresh  for  your  next  session.  Perhaps  indeed  it  does  not 
become  us,  not  members  of  the  legislature,  to  volunteer 
our  advice  or  opinion  on  topics  that  are  before  them. 
But  still  it  is  to  be  remembered  that,  after  all,  public 
opinion,  the  opinion  of  all  thoughtful  men  who  have  an 
interest  in  the  growth  and  future  of  the  Commonwealth 
and  of  Boston,  is  entitled  to  consideration  ;  that  all  of 
us  have  a  right  to  utter  our  wish,  to  express  our  earnest 
desire,  that  the  State  should  recognize,  before  it  be  too 
late,  her  duty  in  this  respect  ;  that  she  should  save, 
while  she  may,  this  unexpected  and  large  accession  of 
wealth  from  the  possibility  of  misuse,  not  let  it  slip  from 
her  hands  till  some  great  measures  be  accomplished, — 


THE  EDUCATION  OP  THE  PEOPLE.         325 

such  measures  as  show  us  worthy,  by  noble  thoughts,  of 
these  great  trusts,  for  such  wealth  is  a  trust ;  that  she 
should  help  the  growth  of  her  capital  city,  and  with  it 
that  of  the  whole  Commonwealth,  by  plans  fitted  for  the 
highest  culture  of  the  people. 

I  welcome  the  action  of  the  State  for  another  thing. 
If  we  could  snatch  from  dispersion,  or  from  the  purchase 
of  some  foreign  capitalist,  that  magnificent  collection 
which  Catlin  has  made  for  the  history  of  the  aboriginal 
races  of  this  continent,  —  something  that  can  never  be 
replaced  if  it  be  once  scattered  and  lost,  —  of  which 
Boston  might  fairly  take  the  custody,  as  the  nucleus  of 
that  ethnologic  study  of  the  races,  languages,  and  epochs 
of  the  past  history  of  the  continent,  and  make  New  Eng- 
land the  centre,  as  that  one  collection  would  make  it,  of 
this  inqurry  and  study,  it  would  give  a  peculiar  interest 
to  our  city,  and  a  great  impulse  to  a  curious  and  valu- 
able study. 

I  see  before  me  some  of  the  women  of  the  Common- 
wealth ;  and  I  remember  that  this  very  legislature  lias 
voted  the  funds  of  the  State  for  forty-eight  scholarships 
for  boys,  to  be  instructed  in  our  various  institutions  of 
learning.  I  see  no  reason  why,  with  the  normal  schools, 
the  district  schools,  and  the  academies  of  the  State  call- 
ing for  teachers,  and  all  departments  of  life  calling  for  a 
more  broad  and  liberal  culture,  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts  should  not  raise  forty -eight  scholarships 
for  the  girls  of  the  State,  so  that  they  may  enjoy  the 
same  liberal  opportunities  with  her  boys.  [Applause.] 
It  seems  to  me  that,  in  connection  with  these  noble  pro- 
visions for  the  growth  of  the  adult  intellect,  the  State 
should  remember  the  schools,  and  the  various  channels 
of  woman's  influence,  and  hold  the  balance  even.  I 
value  those  open  institutions  of  learning  which  it  is  pro- 
posed to  establish  on  yonder  bay,  especially  because  they 


326  THE   EDUCATION   OF   THE   PEOPLE. 

will  tempt  women  —  I  mean,  in  an  especial  sense,  the 
women  in  easy  circumstances,  not  obliged  to  labor  for 
bread  —  to  imitate  the  example  of  their  English  sisters 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  make  it  fashiona- 
ble to  study  the  open  pages  of  God's  work  as  they  are 
written  out  for  them  in  the  collections  of  museums  and 
curiosities  of  the  past. 

Mr.  Chairman,  our  social  life,  or  what  we  call  such,  is 
a  poor  and  vapid  imitation  of  foreign  manners,  —  so  un- 
like the  original  no  wonder  some  will  doubt  the  propri- 
ety of  my  calling  it  an  imitation.  Like  an  exotic  laid  on 
an  unfit  soil,  —  we  cannot  say  planted,  —  it  dies.  For 
the  mere  show  and  splendor,  the  luxurious  pleasure,  the 
prodigal  display  of  social  life,  we  have  neither  the  wealth 
nor  a  large  class  of  idle  loungers  to  keep  each  other  in 
countenance,  and  make  such  continual  show  possible. 
Hence,  what  we  call  society  is  only  a  herd  of  boys  and 
girls,  tired  with  the  day's  lessons,  or  just  emancipated 
from  school,  met  to  prattle  of  nothing,  and  eat  and  drink. 
Selfishness  and  rude  frolic,  or  tasteless  bearing  about  of 
rich  dress,  and  a  struggle  round  groaning  tables  have 
usurped  the  place  of  conversation  and  manners.  Earnest 
life,  the  cares  of  business  take  up  the  full  grown  men  ; 
disgust  and  weariness  keep  women  away;  these  last 
must  either  contract  into  idle  gossips,  or  marry  to  be 
the  drudges  of  a  life  aping  wealthier  levels.  Old  preju- 
dice shuts  them  out  of  active  life.  No  social  life,  worthy 
of  the  name,  upholds  them  in  that  wide  and  liberal  in- 
terest in  thought  and  science,  in  great  questions  and 
civil  interests,  which  made  the  French  woman  a  power 
in  life  and  the  State,  which  once  separated  the  Quaker 
women  from  the  level  of  their  gayer  sisters,  which  now 
crowds  the  lists  of  English  literature  with  women,  some 
of  them  the  best  thinkers,  the  greatest  poets,  and  most 
faithful  scholars  in  our  mother-land.  Open  these  public 


THE    EDUCATION    OF   THE   PEOPLE.  327 

store-houses  ;  gather  these  treasures  of  science  into  the 
lap  of  the  State,  and  see  if  we  cannot  create  for  our 
women  a  nobler  career,  and  call  into  being  a  society 
which  will  refine  life,  and  win  men  from  cares  that  eat 
out  everything  lofty,  and  sensual  pleasures  that  make 
them  half  brutes. 

All  these  things  work  for  us.  They  would  make  gov- 
ernment unnecessary,  so  far  as  it  is  coercion.  I  look 
upon  these  things  as  I  do  upon  the  windmills  one  sees 
all  over  the  provinces  of  Holland.  They  have  shut  out 
the  ocean  with  dykes ;  past  ages  built  up  the  colossal 
structures  which  save  Holland  from  the  wave.  So  we 
have  built  up  laws,  churches,  universities,  to  keep  out 
from  our  garnered  Commonwealth  the  flood  of  ignorance 
and  passion  and  misrule.  But  in  morals  as  in  Nature, 
the  water  which  we  press  back  upon  the  flood  oozes  daily 
through  the  mass ;  and  the  cunning  Hollander  for  cent- 
uries, remembering  this  law,  has  placed  his  picturesque 
and  wide-spread  sails  to  catch  every  breeze  that  sweeps 
through  the  country,  and  as  fast  as  Nature  lets  the  ocean 
ooze  through  his  defences,  the  tireless  windmills  lift  it 
and  pour  it  back  into  the  depths  of  the  sea,  and  every 
breeze  that  hurries  across  the  province  at  night  tells  the 
Dutchman,  as  he  listens,  that  his  home  is  safer  for  its 
passage.  So,  while  you  wake  or  sleep,  these  stores  arid 
associations  shall  do  the  work  for  you  which  the  winds 
do  for  Holland.  As  the  floods  of  vice  ooze  back  through 
your  defences,  they  shall  relieve  you  from  the  continual 
watching,  and  educate  the  people  in  spite  of  them- 
selves, winning  them  to  think,  pointing  them  through 
Nature  to  her  God,  fortifying  virtue  by  habits  that 
render  low  stimulus  needless,  and  developing  the  whole 
man. 

I  think  we  owe  all  this  to  posterity.  The  generations 
that  preceded  us  built  ships,  roads,  cities,  invented  arts, 


328  THE    EDUCATION    OF   THE    PEOPLE. 

raised  up  manufactures,  and  left  them  to  us.  We  inherit 
libraries  and  railways ;  we  inherit  factories  and  houses ; 
we  inherit  the  wealth  and  the  industry  and  the  culture 
of  the  past.  We  do  not  do  enough  if  we  merely  trans- 
mit that,  or  what  is  exactly  like  it,  to  the  future.  No ; 
he  does  not  imitate  his  father  who  is  just  like  his  father, 
paradoxical  as  it  may  seem.  Every  age  that  has  pre- 
ceded us  in  New  England  has  set  its  ingenuity  to  work 
to  find  out  some  wider,  deeper,  better,  more  liberal,  and 
higher  method  of  serving  posterity.  The  Winthrops, 
the  Carvers,  and  the  Brewsters  left  us  churches,  planned 
schools,  common  roads,  and  wooden  houses.  The  gen- 
eration just  gone  have  not  only  turned  their  wooden 
wharves  into  granite,  their  roads  to  iron,  their  spinning- 
wheels  to  factories  that  can  clothe  the  earth  in  a  month, 
but  they  have  conquered  space  and  the  elements  with 
steam,  they  have  harnessed  the  lightning  and  sent  it  on 
errands  ;  they  have  not  only  continued  their  churches, 
they  have  taken  hold  of  the  four  corners  of  the  earth  with 
their  societies  for  the  education  of  the  race.  It  is  for  us 
so  to  be  wise  in  our  time,  that  posterity  shall  remember 
us  also  for  some  peculiar  improvement  upon  the  institu- 
tions of  our  fathers. 

Inaugurate,  then,  this  generation,  by  the  avowal  of 
the  principle  that  private  wealth  has  ceased  to  be ;  that 
it  is  mortgaged  for  the  use  of  the  public  ;  that  its 
office  is  not  to  breed  up  idlers,  but  to  provide  the 
broadest  and  most  liberal  means  of  education ;  that  it 
takes  the  babe  of  poverty,  and  holds  him  in  its  care- 
ful hands,  and  pledges  the  skill  and  garnered  wealth 
of  the  wealthiest  to  give  him  the  very  best  possible  cul- 
ture of  which  the  age  is  capable, — that  Massachusetts 
not  only  gives  him  the  district  schools  and  the  normal 
school,  she  not  only  sees  to  it  that  his  hands  shall  be 
educated  to  earn  money,  but  when,  with  native  tenacity, 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         329 

he  turns  his  attention  wholly  to  the  present,  she  opens 
her  broad  arms,  she  utters  her  tempting  voice,  she 
spreads  before  him  the  wonders  of  creation,  lures  him 
back  from  a  narrow  and  sordid  life,  and  bids  him  be  a 
Massachusetts  man,  worthy  of  the  past,  and  the  apostle 
of  a  greater  future. 


THE   SCHOLAR  IIS"  A  REPUBLIC. 


Address  at  the  Centennial  Anniversary  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  of 
Harvard  College,  June  30,  1881.  None  of  Mr.  Phillips's  literary 
addresses  is  more  characteristic  than  this,  and  in  none  are  there  more 
passages  parallel  with  his  earlier  utterances.  His  first  address  before 
a  strictly  academic  audience  was  given  at  the  Commencement  of 
Williams  College  in  1852,  before  the  Adelphi  Society.  "  His  sub- 
ject," says  a  contemporary  report,  u  was  the  Duty  of  a  Christian 
Scholar  in  a  Republic.  The  morals  of  the  address  was  this  :  that 
the  Christian  scholar  should  utter  truth,  and  labor  for  right  and  God, 
though  parties  and  creeds  and  institutions  and  constitutions  might 
be  damaged.  His  whole  address  was  in  the  spirit  of  that  sentence  of 
Emerson  :  '  I  am  an  endless  seeker,  with  no  past  at  my  back.' " 

In  1855  Mr.  Phillips  spoke  at  the  Commencement  at  Dartmouth 
College,  before  the  United  Literary  Societies  upon  the  Duties  of 
Thoughtful  Men  to  the  Republic.  A  correspondent  sums  up  the 
address  as  follows  .  "  Mr.  Phillips  thought  servility  was  the  great 
danger  of  the  American  scholar,  and  that  as  the  politician,  the  press. 
the  pulpit,  were  faithless,  we  must  place  our  hope  upon  the  scholars 
of  the  country.  In  them  Reform  must  find  the  strongest  advocates 
and  most  efficient  supporters.  Scholars  should  leave  the  heights  of 
contemplation,  and  come  down  into  the  every-day  life  of  the  people." 

In  1857  Mr.  Phillips  gave  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  at  Yale 
College  on  The  Republican  Scholar  of  Necessity  an  Agitator,  and 
arraigned  the  cowardice  of  American  scholarship.  Substantially  the 
same  address  was  given  the  same  year  at  the  Commencement  of 
Brown  University,  before  the  Philomenian  and  United  Brothers' 
Society. 

The  sentences  which  follow  and  the  notes  appended  to  the  present 
address  were  added  by  Mr.  Phillips  himself  when  it  was  brought  out 
in  pamphlet  form  by  the  publishers  of  this  volume. 


THE   SCHOLAR   IN   A   REPUBLIC.  331 

Though  a  linguist  should  pride  himself  to  have  all  the  tongues  that 
Babel  cleft  the  world  into,  yet  if  he  had  not  studied  the  solid  things  in 
them,  as  well  as  the  words  and  lexicons,  he  were  nothing  so  much  to  be 
esteemed  a  learned  man  as  any  yeoman  competently  wise  in  his  mother 
dialect  only.  —  MILTON. 

I  cannot  but  think  as  Aristotle  (lib.  6)  did  of  Thales  and  Anaxago- 
ras,  that  they  may  be  learned  but  not  wise,  or  wise  but  not  prudent, 
when  they  are  ignorant  of  such  things  as  are  profitable  to  them.  For 
suppose  they  know  the  wonders  of  Nature  and  the  subtleties  of  meta- 
physics and  operations  mathematical,  yet  they  cannot  be  prudent  who 
spend  themselves  wholly  upon  unprofitable  and  ineffective  contempla- 
tion.— JEREMY  TAYLOR 

The  people,  sir,  are  not  always  right. 

The  people,  Mr.  Grey,  are  not  often  wrong. 

DISRAELI  :  Vivian  Grey. 

Chains  are  worse  than  bayonets.  —  DOUGLAS  JERROLD. 

Hadst  thou  known  what  freedom  was,  thou  wouldst  advise  us  to 
defend  it  not  with  swords  but  with  axes.  —  Spartans  to  the  Great  King's 
Satrap. 

MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  BROTHERS  OF  THE  P.  B.  K. :  A 
hundred  years  ago  our  society  was  planted, — a 
slip  from  the  older  root  in  Virginia.  The  parent  seed, 
tradition  says,  was  French,  —  part  of  that  conspiracy 
for  free  speech  whose  leaders  prated  democracy  in  the 
salons,  while  they  carefully  held  on  to  the  flesh-pots  of 
society  by  crouching  low  to  kings  and  their  mistresses, 
and  whose  final  object  of  assault  was  Christianity  itself. 
Voltaire  gave  the  watchword, — 

"  Crush  the  wretch." 
"Ecrasez  Vinfame" 

No  matter  how  much  or  how  little  truth  there  may  be 
in  the  tradition ;  no  matter  what  was  the  origin  or  what 
was  the  object  of  our  society,  if  it  had  any  special  one, — 
both  are  long  since  forgotten.  We  stand  now  simply  a 
representative  of  free,  brave,  American  scholarship.  1 
emphasize  American  scholarship. 


332  THE   SCHOLAR   IN    A    REPUBLIC. 

In  one  of  those  glowing,  and  as  yet  unequalled  pict- 
ures which  Everett  drew  for  us,  here  and  elsewhere,  of 
Revolutionary  scenes,  I  remember  his  saying,  that  the 
independence  we  then  won,  if  taken  in  its  literal  and 
narrow  sense,  was  of  no  interest  and  little  value ;  but, 
construed  in  the  fulness  of  its  real  meaning,  it  bound  us 
to  a  distinctive  American  character  and  purpose,  to  a 
keen  sense  of  large  responsibility,  and  to  a  generous  self- 
devotion.  It  is  under  the  shadow  of  such  unquestioned 
authority  that  I  use  the  term  u  American  scholarship/' 

Our  society  was,  no  doubt,  to  some  extent,  a  protest 
against  the  sombre  theology  of  New  England,  where,  a 
hundred  years  ago,  the  atmosphere  was  black  with  ser- 
mons, and  where  religious  speculation  beat  uselessly 
against  the  narrowest  limits. 

The  first  generation  of  Puritans  —  though  Lowell  does 
let  Cromwell  call  them  "  a  small  colony  of  pinched  fanat- 
ics "  —  included  some  men,  indeed  not  a  few,  worthy  to 
walk  close  to  Roger  Williams  and  Sir  Harry  Vane, —  the 
two  men  deepest  in  thought  and  bravest  in  speech  of 
all  who  spoke  English  in  their  day,  and  equal  to  any  in 
practical  statesmanship.  Sir  Harry  Vane^in  my  judg- 
ment the  noblest  human  being  who  ever  walked  the 
streets  of  yonder  city,  —  I  do  not  forget  Franklin  or  Sam 
Adams,  Washington  or  Fayette,  Garrison  or  John  Brown, 
—  but  Vane  dwells  an  arrow's  flight  above  them  all,  and 
his  touch  consecrated  the  continent  to  measureless  toler- 
ation of  opinion  and  entire  equality  of  rights.  We  are 
told  we  can  find  in  Plato  "  all  the  intellectual  life  of 
Europe  for  two  thousand  years ; "  so  you  can  find  in 
Vane  the  pure  gold  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of 
American  civilization,  with  no  particle  of  its  dross.  Plato 
would  have  welcomed  him  to  the  Academy,  and  Fe*nelon 
kneeled  with  him  at  the  altar.  He  made  Somers  and 
John  Marshall  possible ;  like  Carnot,  he  organized  vie- 


THE    SCHOLAR   IN    A    REPUBLIC.  333 

tory ;  and  Milton  pales  before  him  in  the  stainlessness 
of  his  record.  He  stands  among  English  statesmen  pre- 
eminently the  representative,  in  practice  and  in  theory, 
of  serene  faith  in  the  safety  of  trusting  truth  wholly  to 
her  own  defence.  For  other  men  we  walk  backward, 
and  throw  over  their  memories  the  mantle  of  charity 
and  excuse,  saying  reverently,  "  Remember  the  tempta- 
tion and  the  age."  But  Vane's  ermine  has  no  stain  ;  no 
act  of  his  needs  explanation  or  apology  ;  and  m  thought 
he  stands  abreast  of  our  age,  —  like  pure  intellect,  be- 
longs to  all  time. 

Carlyle  said,  'in  years  when  his  words  were  worth 
heeding,  "  Young  men,  close  your  Byron,  and  open  your 
Goethe."  If  my  counsel  had  weight  in  these  halls,  I 
should  say,  "Young  men,  close  your  John  Winthrop  and 
Washington,  your  Jefferson  and  Webster,  and  open  Sir 
Harry  Vane."  The  generation  that  knew  Vane  gave  to 
our  Alma  Mater  for  a  seal  the  simple  pledge,  —  Veritas. 

But  the  narrowness  and  poverty  of  colonial  life  soon 
starved  out  this  element.  Harvard  was  rededicated 
Christo  et  Ecclesice ;  and  up  to  the  middle  of  the  last 
century,  free  thought  in  religion  meant  Charles  Chauncy 
and  the  Brattle-Street  Church  protest,  while  free  thought 
hardly  existed  anywhere  else.  But  a  single  generation 
changed  all  this.  A  hundred  years  ago  there  were  pul- 
pits that  led  the  popular  movement;  while  outside  of 
religion  and  of  what  called  itself  literature,  industry 
and  a  jealous  sense  of  personal  freedom  obeyed,  in  their 
rapid  growth,  the  law  of  their  natures.  English  com- 
mon-sense and  those  municipal  institutions  born  of  the 
common  law,  and  which  had  saved  and  sheltered  it, 
grew  inevitably  too  large  for  the  eggshell  of  English 
dependence,  and  allowed  it  to  drop  off  as  naturally  as 
the  chick  does  when  she  is  ready.  There  was  no  change 
of  law,  nothing  that  could  properly  be  called  revolu- 


334  THE   SCHOLAR   IN    A    REPUBLIC. 

tion,  only  noiseless  growth,  the  seed  bursting  into  flower, 
infancy  becoming  manhood.  It  was  life  in  its  omnipo- 
tence, rending  whatever  dead  matter  confined  it.  So 
have  I  seen  the  tiny  weeds  of  a  luxuriant  Italian  spring 
upheave  the  colossal  foundations  of  the  Caesars'  palace, 
and  leave  it  a  mass  of  ruins. 

But  when  the  veil  was  withdrawn,  what  stood  revealed 
astonished  the  world.  It.  showed  the  undreamt  power, 
the  serene  strength  of  simple  manhood,  free  from  the 
burden  and  restraint  of  absurd  institutions  in  Church 
and  State.  The  grandeur  of  this  new  Western  constel- 
lation gave  courage  to  Europe,  resulting  in  the  French 
Revolution,  the  greatest,  the  most  unmixed,  the  most 
unstained  and  wholly  perfect  blessing  Europe  has  had 
in  modern  times,  unless  we  may  possibly  except  the 
Reformation  and  the  invention  of  printing. 

What  precise  effect  that  giant  wave  had  when  it  struck 
our  shore  we  can  only  guess.  History  is,  for  the  most 
part,  an  idle  amusement,  the  day-dream  of  pedants  and 
triflers.  The  details  of  events,  the  actors'  motives,  and 
their  relation  to  each  other  are  buried  with  them.  How 
impossible  to  learn  the  exact  truth  of  what  took  place 
yesterday  under  your  next  neighbor's  roof!  Yet,  we 
complacently  argue  and  speculate  about  matters  a  thou- 
sand miles  off,  and  a  thousand  years  ago,  as  if  we  knew 
them.  When  I  was  a  student  here,  my  favorite  study 
was  history.  The  world  and  affairs  have  shown  me  that 
one  half  of  history  is  loose  conjecture,  and  much  of  the 
rest  is  the  writer's  opinion.1  But  most  men  see  facts, 

1  Read  me  anything  but  history,  for  history  must  be  false.  —  SIR 
ROBERT  WALPOLE 

The  records  of  the  past  are  not  complete  enough  to  enable  the  most 
dilligent  historian  to  give  a  connected  narrative  in  which  there  shall  not 
be  many  parts  resting  on  guesses  or  inferences  or  unauthenticated  ru- 
mors. He  may  guess  himself,  or  he  may  report  other  people's  guesses ; 
but  guesses  there  must  be.  —  SPEDDIXO,  Life  of  Bacon,  vol.  vi.  p.  76. 


THE   SCHOLAR   IN    A   REPUBLIC.  335 

not  with  their  eyes,  but  with  their  prejudices.  Any  one 
familiar  with  courts  will  testify  how  rare  it  is  for  an 
honest  man  to  give  a  perfectly  correct  account  of  a 
transaction.  We  are  tempted  fco  see  facts  as  we  think 
they  ought  to  be,  or  wish  they  were.  And  yet  journals 
are  the  favorite  original  sources  of  history.  Tremble, 
my  good  friend,  if  your  sixpenny  neighbor  keeps  a 
journal.  "  It  adds  a  new  terror  to  death."  You  shall 
go  down  to  your  children  not  in  your  fair  lineaments 
and  proportions,  but  with  the  smirks,  elbows,  and  angles 
he  sees  you  with.  Journals  are  excellent  to  record  the 
depth  of  the  last  snow  and  the  date  when  the  May- 
flower opens  ;  but  when  you  come  to  men's  motives  and 
characters,  journals  are  the  magnets  that  get  near  the 
chronometer  of  history  and  make  all  its  records  worth- 
less. You  can  count  on  the  fingers  of  your  two  hands 
all  the  robust  minds  that  ever  kept  journals.  Only  milk- 
sops and  fribbles  indulge  in  that  amusement,  except  now 
and  then  a  respectable  mediocrity.  One  such  journal 
nightmares  New  England  annals,  emptied  into  history 
by  respectable  middle-aged  gentlemen  who  fancy  that 
narrowness  and  spleen,  like  poor  wine,  mellow  into  truth 
when  they  get  to  be  a  century  old.  But  you  might  as 
well  cite  the  Daily  Advertiser  of  1850  as  authority 
on  one  of  Garrison's  actions. 

And,  after  all,  of  what  value  are  these  minutia3? 
Whether  Luther's  zeal  was  partly  kindled  by  lack  of 
gain  from  the  sale  of  indulgences,  whether  Boston 
rebels  were  half  smugglers  and  half  patriots,  what  mat- 
ters it  now  ?  Enough  that  he  meant  to  wrench  the  gag 
from  Europe's  lips,  and  that  they  were  content  to  suffer 
keenly,  that  we  might  have  an  untrammelled  career. 
We  can  only  hope  to  discover  the  great  currents  and 
massive  forces  which  have  shaped  our  lives ;  all  else  is 
trying  to  solve  a  problem  of  whose  elements  we  know 


386  THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

nothing.  As  the  poet-historian  of  the  last  generation 
says  so  plaintively,  "  History  comes  like  a  beggarly 
gleaner  in  the  field,  after  Death,  the  great  lord  of  the 
domain,  has  gathered  the  harvest,  and  lodged  it  in  his 
garner,  which  no  man  may  open." 

But  we  may  safely  infer  that  French  debate  and  ex- 
perience broadened  and  encouraged  our  fathers.  To 
that  we  undoubtedly  owe,  in  some  degree,  the  theoreti- 
cal perfection,  ingrafted  on  English  practical  sense  and 
old  forms,  which  marks  the  foundation  of  our  republic. 
English  civil  life,  up  to  that  time,  grew  largely  out  of 
custom,  rested  almost  wholly  on  precedent.  For  our 
model  there  was  no  authority  in  the  record,  no  precedent 
on  the  file  ;  unless  you  find  it,  perhaps,  partially,  in  that 
Long  Parliament  bill  with  which  Sir  Harry  Vane  would 
have  outgeneralled  Cromwell,  if  the  shameless  soldier 
had  not  crushed  it  with  his  muskets. 

Standing  on  Saxon  foundations,  and  inspired,  perhaps^ 
in  some  degree  by  Latin  example,  we  have  done  what 
no  race,  no  nation,  no  age,  had  before  dared  even  to  try. 
We  have  founded  a  republic  on  the  unlimited  suffrage 
of  the  millions.  We  have  actually  worked  out  the  prob- 
lem that  man,  as  God  created  him,  may  be  trusted  with 
self-government.  We  have  shown  the  world  that  a 
Church  without  a  bishop,  and  a  State  without  a  king,  is 
an  actual,  real,  every-day  possibility.  Look  back  over 
the  history  of  the  race ;  where  will  you  find  a  chapter 
that  precedes  us  in  that  achievement  ?  Greece  had  her 
republics,  but  they  were  the  republics  of  a  few  freemen 
and  subjects  and  many  slaves  ;  and  "  the  battle  of  Mara- 
thon was  fought  by  slaves,  unchained  from  the  door-posts 
of  their  masters'  houses."  Italy  had  her  republics :  they 
were  the  republics  of  wealth  and  skill  and  family,  limited 
and  aristocratic.  The  Swiss  republics  were  groups  of 
cousins.  Holland  had  her  republic,  a  republic  of 


THE   SCHOLAR   IN   A    REPUBLIC.  337 

guilds  and  landholders,  trusting  the  helm  of  state  to 
property  and  education.  And  all  these,  which  at  their 
best  held  but  a  million  or  two  within  their  narrow  limits, 
have  gone  down  in  the  ocean  of  time. 

A  hundred  years  ago  our  fathers  announced  this  sub- 
lime, and,  as  it  seemed  then,  foolhardy  declaration,— 
that  God  intended  all  men  to  be  free  and  equal  :  all  men, 
without  restriction,  without  qualification,  without  limit. 
A  hundred  years  have  rolled  away  since  that  venturous 
declaration  ;  and  to-day,  with  a  territory  that  joins  ocean 
to  ocean,  with  fifty  millions  of  people,  with  two  wars  be- 
hind her,  with  the  grand  achievement  of  having  grappled 
with  the  fearful  disease  that  threatened  her  central  life 
and  broken  four  millions  of  fetters,  the  great  Republic, 
stronger  than  ever,  launches  into  the  second  century  of 
her  existence.  The  history  of  the  world  has  no  such 
chapter  in  its  breadth,  its  depth,  its  significance,  or  its 
bearing  on  future  history. 

What  Wycliffe  did  for  religion,  Jefferson  and  Sam 
Adams  did  for  the  State,  —  they  trusted  it  to  the  people. 
He  gave  the  masses  the  Bible,  the  right  to  think.  Jef- 
ferson and  Sam  Adams  gave  them  the  ballot,  the  right 
to  rule.  His  intrepid  advance  contemplated  theirs  as 
its  natural,  inevitable  result.  Their  serene  faith  com- 
pleted the  gift  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  makes  to 
humanity.  We  have  not  only  established  a  new  meas- 
ure of  the  possibilities  of  the  race  ;  we  have  laid  on 
strength,  wisdom,  and  skill  a  new  responsibility.  Grant 
that  each  man's  relations  to  God  and  his  neighbor  are 
exclusively  his  own  Concern,  and  that  he  is  entitled  ta 
all  the  aid  that  will^  moTre  him  the  hsuda.^L  these- 


relations  ;^Saf/  the  people  are  the  source  of  all  power, 
and  their  measureless  capacity,  the  lever  of  all  progress  ; 
their  sense  of  right,  the  court  of  final  appeal  in  civil 
affairs  ;  the  institutions  they  create  the  only  ones  any 

IS 


338          THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

power  has  a  right  to  impose ;  that  the  attempt  of  one 
class  to  prescribe  the  law,  the  religion,  the  morals,  or 
the  trade  of  another  is  both  unjust  and  harmful,  —  and 
the  Wycliffe  and  Jefferson  of  history  mean  this  if  they 
mean  anything,  —  then,  when  in  1867,  Parliament 
doubled  the  English  franchise,  Robert  Lowe  was  right 
in  affirming,  amid  the  cheers  of  the  House,  "  Now  the  first 
interest  and  duty  of  every  Englishman  is  to  educate  the 
masses  —  our  masters."  Then,  whoever  sees  farther 
than  his  neighbor  is  that  neighbor's  servant  to  lift  him 
to  such  higher  level.  Then,  power,  ability,  influence, 
character,  virtue,  are  only  trusts  with  which  to  serve 
our  time. 

\J0Te  all  agree  in  the  duty  of  scholars  to  help  those 
less  favored  in  life,  and  that  this  duty  of  scholars  to 
educate  the  mass  is  still  more  imperative  in  a  republic, 
since  a  republic  trusts  the  State  wholly  to  the  intelli- 
gence and  moral  sense  of  the  people.}  The  experience 
of  the  last  forty  years  shows  every  man  that  law  has 
no  atom  of  strength,  either  in  Boston  or  New  Orleans, 
unless,  and  only  so  far  as,  public  opinion  indorses  it, 
and  that  your  life,  goods,  and  good  name  rest  on  the 
moral  sense,  self-respect,  and  law-abiding  mood  of  the 
men  that  walk  the  streets,  and  hardly  a  whit  on  the 
provisions  of  the  statute-book.  Come,  any  one  of  you, 
outside  of  the  ranks  of  popular  men,  and  you  will  not 
fail  to  find  it  so.  Easy  men  dream  that  we  live  under  a 
government  of  law.  Absurd  mistake  !  we  live  under  a 
government  of  men  and  newspapers.  Your  first  attempt 
to  stem  dominant  and  keenly-cherished  opinions  will 
reveal  this  to  you. 

But  what  is  education  ?  Of  course  it  is  not  book- 
learning.  Book-learning  does  not  make  five  per  cent 
of  that  mass  of  common-sense  that  "runs"  the  world, 
transacts  its  business,  secures  its  progress,  trebles  its 


THE    SCHOLAR   IN   A   REPUBLIC.  339 

power  over  Nature,  works  out  in  the  long  run  a  rougli 
average  justice,  wears  away  the  world's  restraints,  and 
lifts  off  its  burdens.  The  ideal  Yankee,  who  "  has  more 
brains  in  his  hand  than  others  have  in  their  skulls,"  is 
not  a  scholar ;  and  two  thirds  of  the  inventions  that 
enable  France  to  double  the  world's  sunshine,  and  make 
Old  and  New  England  the  workshops  of  the  world,  did 
not  come  from  colleges  or  from  minds  trained  in  the 
schools  of  science,  but  struggled  up,  forcing  their  way 
against  giant  obstacles,  from  the  irrepressible  instinct 
of  untrained  natural  power.  Her  workshops,  not  her 
colleges,  made  England,  for  a  while,  the  mistress  of 
the  world ;  and  the  hardest  job  her  workman  had 
was  to  make  Oxford  willing  he  should  work  his 
wonders. 

So  of  moral  gains.  As  shrewd  an  observer  as  Gov- 
ernor Marcy,  of  New  York,  often  said  he  cared  'nothing 
for  the  whole  press  of  the  seaboard,  representing  wealth 
and  education  (he  meant  book-learning),  if  it  set  itself 
against  the  instincts  of  the  people.  Lord  Brougham, 
in  a  remarkable  comment  on  the  life  of  Romilly,  en- 
larges on  the  fact  that  the  great  reformer  of  the  penal 
law  found  all  the  legislative  and  all  the  judicial  power  i 
of  England,  its  colleges  and  its  bar,  marshalled  against  — -^ 
him,  and  owed  his  success,  as  all  such  reforms  do,  says/ 
his  lordship,  to  public  meetings  and  popular  instinct/ 
It  would  be  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  government 
itself  began  in  usurpation,  in  the  feudalism  of  the  sol- 
dier and  the  bigotry  of  the  priest ;  that  liberty  and 
civilization  are  only  fragments  of  rights  wrung  from 
the  strong  hands  of  wealth  and  book-learning.  Almost 
all  the  great  truths  relating  to  society  were  not  the 
result  of  scholarly  meditation,  "  hiving  up  wisdom  with 
each  curious  year,"  but  have  been  first  heard  in  the 
solemn  protests  of  martyred  patriotism  and  the  loud 


340          THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

cries  of  crushed  and  starving  labor.  When  common- 
sense  and  the  common  people  have  stereotyped  a  prin- 
ciple into  a  statute,  then  book-men  come  to  explain  how 
it  was  discovered  and  on  what  ground  it  rests.  The 
world  makes  history,  and  scholars  write  it,  —  one  half 
truly,  and  the  other  half  as  their  prejudices  blur  and 
distort  it. 

New  England  learned  more  of  the  principles  of  tol- 
eration from  a  lyceum  committee  doubting  the  dicta 
of  editors  and  bishops  when  they  forbade  it  to  put 
Theodore  Parker  on  its  platform  ;  more  from  a  debate 
whether  the  Antislavery  cause  should  be  so  far  counte- 
nanced as  to  invite  one  of  its  advocates  to  lecture ;  from 
Sumner  and  Emerson,  George  William  Curtis,  and  Edwin 
Whipple,  refusing  to  speak  unless  a  negro  could  buy  his 
way  into  their  halls  as  freely  as  any  other,  —  New  Eng- 
land has  learned  more  from  these  lessons  than  she  has 
or  could  have  done  from  all  the  treatises  on  free  print- 
ing from  Milton  and  Roger  Williams  through  Locke 
down  to  Stuart  Mill. 

Selden,  the  profoundest  scholar  of  his  day,  affirmed, 
"  No  man  is  wiser  for  his  learning ; "  and  that  was  only 
an  echo  of  the  Saxon  proverb,  u  No  fool  is  a  perfect  fool 
until  he  learns  Latin."  Bancroft  says  of  our  fathers, 
that  "  the  wildest  theories  of  the  human  reason  were  re- 
duced to  practice  by  a  community  so  humble  that  no 
statesman  condescended  to  notice  it,  and  a  legislation 
without  precedent  was  produced  off-hand  by  the  in- 
stincts of  the  people."  And  Wordsworth  testifies,  that, 
while  German  schools  might  well  blush  for  their 
subserviency,  — 

"  A  few  strong  instincts  and  a  few  plain  rules, 
Among  the  herdsmen  of  the  Alps,  have  wrought 
More  for  mankind  at  this  unhappy  day 
Than  all  the  pride  of  intellect  and  thought." 


THE    SCHOLAR   IN    A    REPUBLIC.  341 

Wycliffe  was,  no  doubt,  a  learned  man.  But  the 
learning  of  his  day  would  have  burned  him,  had  it 
dared,  as  it  did  burn  his  dead  body  afterwards.  Luther 
and  Melanchthon  were  scholars,  but  they  were  repudiated 
by  the  scholarship  of  their  time,  which  followed  Erasmus, 
trying  "all  his  life  to  tread  on  eggs  without  breaking 
them ; "  he  who  proclaimed  that  "  peaceful  error  was 
better  than  tempestuous  truth."  What  would  college- 
graduate  Seward  weigh,  in  any  scale,  against  Lincoln 
bred  in  affairs? 

Hence,  I  do  not  think  the  greatest  things  have  been 
done  for  the  world  by  its  book-men.  Education  is  not 
the  chips  of  arithmetic  and  grammar,  —  nouns,  verbs, 
and  the  multiplication  table;  neither  is  it  that  last  year's 
almanac  of  dates,  or  series  of  lies  agreed  upon,  which 
we  so  often  mistake  for  history.  Education  is  not  Greek 
and  Latin  and  the  air-pump.  Still,  I  rate  at  its  full  value 
the  training  we  get  in  these  walls.  Though  what  we 
actually  carry  away  is  little  enough,  we  do  get  some 
training  of  our  powers,  as  the  gymnast  or  the  fencer 
does  of  his  muscles  ;  we  go  hence  also  with  such  general 
knowledge  of  what  mankind  has  agreed  to  consider 
proved  and  settled,  that  we  know  where  to  reach  for  the 
weapon  when  we  need  it. 

I  have  often  thought  the  motto  prefixed  to  his  college 
library  catalogue  by  the  father  of  the  late  Professor 
Peirce,  —  Professor  Peirce,  the  largest  natural  genius, 
the  man  of  the  deepest  reach  and  firmest  grasp  and 
widest  sympathy,  that  God  has  given  to  Harvard  in  our 
day,  whose  presence  made  you  the  loftiest  peak  and 
farthest  outpost  of  more  than  mere  scientific  thought, 
the  magnet  who,  with  his  twin  Agassiz,  made  Harvard 
for  forty  years  the  intellectual  Mecca  of  forty  States, — 
his  father's  catalogue  bore  for  a  motto,  Scire  ubi  ali- 
quid  invenias  magna  pars  eruditions  est ;  and  that 


342  THE   SCHOLAR   IN   A   REPUBLIC. 

always  seemed  to  me  to  gauge  very  nearly  all  we  ac- 
quired at  college,  except  facility  in  the  use  of  em- 
powers. Our  influence  in  the  community  does  not 
really  spring  from  superior  attainments,  but  from  this 
thorough  training  of  faculties,  and  more  even,  perhaps, 
from  the  deference  men  accord  to  us. 

Gibbon  says  we  have  two  educations,  —  one  from 
teachers,  and  the  other  we  give  ourselves.  This  last  is 
(the  real  and  only  education  of  the  masses,  —  one  gotten 
[from  life,  from  affairs,  from  earning  one's  bread  ;  neces- 
sity, the  mother  of  invention  ;  responsibility,  that  teaches 
prudence,  and  inspires  respect  for  right.  Mark  the 
critic  out  of  office :  how  reckless  in  assertion,  how  care- 
less of  consequences ;  and  then  the  caution,  forethought, 
and  fair  play  of  the  same  man  charged  with  administra- 
tion. See  that  young,  thoughtless  wife  suddenly  wid- 
owed ;  how  wary  and  skilful,  what  ingenuity  in  guarding 
her  child  and  saving  his  rights !  Any  one  who  studied 
Europe  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  could  not  but  have 
marked  the  level  of  talk  there,  far  below  that  of  our 
masses.  It  was  of  crops  and  rents,  markets  and  mar- 
riages, scandal  and  fun.  Watch  men  here,  and  how 
often  you  listen  to  the  keenest  discussions  of  right  and 
wrong,  this  leader's  honesty,  that  party's  justice,  the  fair- 
ness of  this  law,  the  impolicy  of  that  measure,  —  lofty, 
broad  topics,  training  morals,  widening  views.  Niebuhr 
said  of  Italy,  sixty  years  ago,  "  No  one  feels  himself  a 
citizen.  Not  only  are  the  people  destitute  of  hope,  but 
[they  have  not  even  wishes  touching  the  world's  affairs; 

ind  hence  all  the  springs  of  great  and  noble  thoughts 

ire  choked  up." 

In  this  sense  the  Fremont  campaign  of  1856  taught 
Americans  more  than  a  hundred  colleges ;  and  John 
Brown's  pulpit  at  Harper's  Ferry  was  equal  to  any  ten 
thousand  ordinary  chairs.  God  lifted  a  million  of  hearts 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC.          343 

to  his  gibbet,  as  the  Roman  cross  lifted  a  world  to  itself 
in  that  divine  sacrifice  of  two  thousand  years  ago.  As 
much  as  statesmanship  had  taught  in  our  previous 
eighty  years,  that  one  week  of  intellectual  watching  and 
weighing  and  dividing  truth  taught  twenty  millions  of 
people.  Yet  how  little,  brothers,  can  we  claim  for  book- 
men in  that  uprising  and  growth  of  1856  !  And  while 
the  first  of  American  scholars  could  hardly  find  in  the 
rich  vocabulary  of  Saxon  scorn  words  enough  to  express, 
amid  the  plaudits  of  his  class,  his  loathing  and  contempt 
for  John  Brown,  Europe  thrilled  to  him  as  proof  that  our 
institutions  had  not  lost  all  their  native  and  distinctive 
life.  She  had  grown  tired  of  our  parrot  note  and  cold 
moonlight  reflection  of  older  civilizations.  Lansdowne 
and  Brougham  could  confess  to  Sumner  that  they  had 
never  read  a  page  of  their  contemporary,  Daniel  Web- 
ster; and  you  spoke  to  vacant  eyes  when  you  named 
Prescott,  fifty  years  ago,  to  average  Europeans  ;  while 
Vienna  asked,  with  careless  indifference,  "  Seward,  who 
is  he  ?  "  But  long  before  our  ranks  marched  up  State 
Street  to  the  John  Brown  song,  the  banks  of  the  Seine 
and  of  the  Danube  hailed  the  new  life  which  had  given. 
us  another  and  nobler  Washington.  Lowell  foresaw  him 
when,  forty  years  ago,  he  sang  of, — 

"  Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold, 

Wrong  forever  on  the  throne  ; 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future, 

And  behind  the  dim  unknown 
Standeth  God,  within  the  shadow. 

Keeping  watch  above  His  own." 

And  yet  the  book-men,  as  a  class,  have  not  yet  acknowl- 
edged him. 

It  is  here  that  letters  betray  their  lack  of  distinctive 
American  character.  Fifty  millions  of  men  God  gives 
us  to  mould ;  burning  questions,  keen  debate,  great  in- 


344          THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

terests  trying  to  vindicate  their  right  to  be,  sad  wrongs 
brought  to  the  bar  of  public  judgment,  —  these  are  the 
people's  schools.  Timid  scholarship  either  shrinks 
from  sharing  in  these-  agitations,  or  denounces  them  as 
vulgar  and  dangerous  interference^by  incompetent 
hands  with  matters  above  them.  KA  chronic  distrust 
of  the  people  pervades  the  book-educated  class  of  the 
North ;  they  shrink  from  that  free  speech  which  is 
God's  normal  school  for  educating  men,  throwing  upon 
them  the  grave  responsibility  of  deciding  great  ques- 
tions, and  so  lifting  them  to  a  higher  level  of  intel- 
lectual and  moral  life.  Trust  the  people  —  the  wise 
and  the  ignorant,  the  good  and  the  bad  — with  the 
gravest  questions,  and  in  the  end  you  educate  the  race. 
At  the  same  time  you  secure,  not  perfect  institutions, 
not  necessarily  good  ones,  but  the  best  institutions  pos- 
sible while  human  nature  is  the  basis  and  the  only  ma- 
terial to  build  with.  Men  are  educated  and  the  State 
uplifted  by  allowing  all  —  every  one  —  to  broach  all 
their  mistakes  and  advocate  all  their  errors.  The  com- 
munity that  will  not  protect  its  most  ignorant  and  un- 
popular member  in  the  free  utterance  of  his  opinions,  no 
matter  how  false  or  hateful,  is  only  a  gang  of  slaves  ! 

Anacharsis  went  into  the  Archon's  court  at  Athens, 
heard  a  case  argued  by  the  great  men  of  that  city,  and 
saw  the  vote  by  five  hundred  men.  Walking  in  the 
streets,  some  one  asked  him,  "  What  do  you  think  of 
Athenian  liberty?"  "I  think,"  said  he,  "wise  men 
argue  cases,  and  fools  decide  them."  Just  what  that 
timid  scholar,  two  thousand  years  ago,  said  in  the 
streets  of  Athens,  that  which  calls  itself  scholarship 
here  says  to-day  of  popular  agitation,  —  that  it  lets  wise 
men  argue  questions  and  fools  decide  them.  But  that 
Athens  where  fools  decided  the  gravest  questions  of 
policy  and  of  right  and  wrong,  where  property  you  had 


THE   SCHOLAR   IN    A    REPUBLIC.  845 

gathered  wearily  to-day  might  be  wrung  from  you  hy 
the  caprice  of  the  mob  to-inorro\v,  —  that  very  Athens 
probably  secured,  for  its  era,  the  greatest  amount  of 
human  happiness  and  nobleness,  invented  art,  and 
sounded  for  us  the  depths  of  philosophy.  God  lent  to  it 
the  largest  intellects,  and  it  flashes  to-day  the  torch  that 
gilds  yet  the  mountain  peaks  of  the  Old  World.  While 
Egypt,  the  hunker  conservative  of  antiquity,  where  no- 
body dared  to  differ  from  the  priest  or  to  be  wiser  than 
his  grandfather ;  where  men  pretended  to  be  alive, 
though  swaddled  in  the  grave-clothes  of  creed  and 
custom  as  close  as  their  mummies  were  in  linen,  —  that 
Egypt  is  hid  in  the  tomb  it  inhabited,  and  the  intellect 
Athens  has  trained  for  us  digs  to-day  those  ashes  to  find 
out  how  buried  and  forgotten  hunkerism  lived  and  acted. 
I  knew  a  signal  instance  of  this  disease  of  scholar's 
distrust,  and  the^  cure  was  as  remarkable.  In  boyhood 
and  early  Jife  I  was  honored  with  the  friendship  of 
Lothrop  Motley.  He  grew  up  in  the  thin  air  of  Bos- 
ton provincialism,  and  pined  on  such  weak  diet.  I 
remember  sitting  with  him  once  in  the  State  House 
when  he  was  a  member  of  our  legislature.  With  bit- 
ing words  and  a  keen  crayon  he  sketched  the  ludicrous 
points  in  the  minds  and  persons  of  his  fellow-members, 
and  tearing  up  the  pictures,  said  scornfully,  "  What 
can  become  of  a  country  with  such  fellows  as  these 
making  its  laws  ?  No  safe  investments ;  your  good 
name  lied  away  any  hour,  and  little  worth  keeping  if  it- 
were  not."  In  vain  I  combated  the  folly.  He  went 
to  Europe ; .  spent  four  or  five  years.  I  met  him  the 
day  he  landed  on  his  return.  As  if  our  laughing  talk 
in  the  State  House  had  that  moment  ended,  he  took 
my  hand  with  the  sudden  exclamation,  "  You  were  all 
right;  I  was  all  wrong!  It  is  a  country  worth  dying 
for  ;  better  still,  worth  living  and  working  for,  to  make 


346  THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

it  all  it  can  be ! "  Europe  made  him  one  of  the  most 
American  of  all  Americans.  Some  five  years  later, 
when  he  sounded  the  bugle-note  in  his  letter  to  the 
London  Times,  some  critics  who  knew  his  early  mood, 
but  not  its  change,  suspected  there  might  be  a  taint  of 
ambition  in  what  they  thought  so  sudden  a  conversion. 
I  could  testify  that  the  mood  was  five  years  old,  —  years 
before  the  slightest  shadow  of  political  expectation  had 
dusked  the  clear  mirror  of  his  scholar  life. 

This  distrust  shows  itself  in  the  growing  dislike  of 
universal  suffrage,  and  the  efforts  to  destroy  it  made  of 
late  by  all  our  easy  classes.  The  white  South  hates 
universal  suffrage  ;  the  so-called  cultivated  North  dis- 
trusts it.  Journal  and  college,  social-science  convention 
and  the  pulpit,  discuss  the  propriety  of  restraining  it. 
Timid  scholars  tell  their  dread  of  it.  Carlyle,  that 
bundle  of  sour  prejudices,  flouts  universal  suffrage  with 
a  blasphemy  that  almost  equals  its  ignorance.  See  his 
words  :  "  Democracy  will  prevail  when  men  believe  the 
vote  of  Judas  as  good  as  that  of  Jesus  Christ."  No 
democracy  ever  claimed  that  the  vote  of  ignorance  and 
crime  was  as  good  in  any  sense  as  that  of  wisdom  and 
virtue.  It  only  asserts  that  crime  and  ignorance  have 
the  same  right  to  vote  that  virtue  has.  Only  by  allow- 
ing that  right,  and  so  appealing  to  their  sense  of  justice, 
and  throwing  upon  them  the  burden  of  their  full  re- 
sponsibility, can  we  hope  ever  to  raise  crime  and  igno- 
rance to  the  level  of  self-respect.  The  right  to  choose 
your  governor  rests  on  precisely  the  same  foundation 
as  the  right  to  choose  your  religion  ;  and  no  more  arro- 
gant or  ignorant  arraignment  of  all  that  is  noble  in  the 
civil  and  religious  Europe  of  the  last  five  hundred  years 
ever  came  from  the  triple  crown  on  the  Seven  Hills 
than  this  sneer  of  the  bigot  Scotsman.  Protestantism 
holds  up  its  hands  in  holy  horror,  and  tells  us  that  the 


THE   SCHOLAR   IN    A   REPUBLIC.  347 

Pope  scoops  out  the  brains  of  his  churchmen,  saying, 
4;  I  '11  think  for  you  ;  you  need  only  obey."  But  the 
danger  is,  you  meet  such  popes  far  away  from  the 
Seven  Hills  ;  and  it  is  sometimes  difficult  at  first  to 
recognize  them,  for  they  do  not  by  any  means  always 
wear  the  triple  crown. 

Evarts  and  his  committee,  appointed  to  inquire  why 
the  New  York  City  government  is  a  failure,  were  not 
wise  enough,  or  did  not  dare,  to  point  out  the  real 
cause,  —  the  tyranny  of  that  tool  of  the  demagogue,  the 
corner  grog  shop ;  but  they  advised  taking  away  the  bal- 
lot from  the  poor  citizen.  But  this  provision  would  not 
reach  the  evil.  Corruption  does  not  so  much  rot  the 
masses ;  it  poisons  Congress.  Credit-Mobilier  and 
money  rings  are  not  housed  under  thatched  roofs ; 
they  flaunt  at  the  Capitol.  As  usual  in  chemistry,  the 
scum  floats  uppermost.  The  railway  king  disdained 
canvassing  for  voters :  "  It  is  cheaper,"  he  said,  "  to 
buy  legislatures." 

It  is  not  the  masses  who  have  most  disgraced  our 
political  annals.  I  have  seen  many  mobs  between  the 
seaboard  and  the  Mississippi.  I  never  saw  or  heard  of 
any  but  well-dressed  mobs,  assembled  and  countenanced,  > 
if  not  always  led  in  person,  by  respectability  and  what 
called  itself  education.  That  unrivalled  scholar,  the 
first  and  greatest  New  England  ever  lent  to  Congress, 
signalled  his  advent  by  quoting  the  original  Greek  of 
the  New  Testament  in  support  of  slavery,  and  offering 
to  shoulder  his  musket  in  its  defence ;  and  forty  years 
later  the  last  professor  who  went  to  quicken  and  lift 
the  moral  mood  of  those  halls  is  found  advising  a  plain, 
blunt,  honest  witness  to  forge  and  lie,  that  this  scholarly 
reputation  might  be  saved  from  wreck.  Singular  com- 
ment on  Landor's  sneer,  that  there  is  a  spice  of  the 
scoundrel  in  most  of  our  literary  men.  But  no  exacting 


348          THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

level  of  property  qualification  for  a  vote  would  have 
saved  those  stains.  In  those  cases  Judas  did  not  come 
from  the  unlearned  class. 

Grown  gray  over  history,  Macaulay  prophesied  twenty 
years  ago  that  soon  in  these  States  the  poor,  worse  than 
another  inroad  of  Goths  and  Vandals,  would  begin  a 
general  plunder  of  the  rich.  It  is  enough  to  say  that 
our  national  funds  sell  as  well  in  Europe  as  English 
consols ;  and  the  universal-suffrage  Union  can  borrow 
money  as  cheaply  as  Great  Britain,  ruled,  one  half  by 
Tories,  and  the  other  half  by  men  not  certain  that  they 
dare  call  themselves  Whigs.  Some  men  affected  to 
scoff  at  democracy  as  no  sound  basis  for  national  debt, 
doubting  the  payment  of  ours.  Europe  not  only  won- 
ders at  its  rapid  payment,  but  the  only  taint  of  fraud 
that  touches  even  the  hem  of  our  garment  is  the  fraud 
of  the  capitalist  cunningly  adding  to  its  burdens,  and 
increasing  unfairly  the  value  of  his  bonds ;  not  the  first 
hint  from  the  people  of  repudiating  an  iota  even  of  its 
unjust  additions. 

Yet  the  poor  and  the  unlearned  class  is  the  one  they 
propose  to  punish  by  disfranchisement. 

No  wonder  the  humbler  class  looks  on  the  whole 
scene  with  alarm.  They  see  their  dearest  right  in  peril. 
When  the  easy  class  conspires  to  steal,  what  wonder 
the  humbler  class  draws  together  to  defend  itself  ? 
True,  universal  suffrage  is  a  terrible  power  ;  and  with 
all  the  great  cities  brought  into  subjection  to  the  dan- 
gerous classes  by  grog,  and  Congress  sitting  to  register 
the  decrees  of  capital,  both  sides  may  well  dread  the 
next  move.  Experience  proves  that  popular  govern- 
ments are  the  best  protectors  of  life  and  property.  But 
suppose  they  were  not,  Bancroft  allows  that  "  the  .fears 
of  one  class  are  no  measure  of  the  rights  of  another." 

Suppose  that  universal  suffrage  endangered  peace  and 


THE   SCHOLAR   IN    A    REPUBLIC.  349 

threatened  property.  There  is  something  more  valuable 
than  wealth,  there  is  something  more  sacred  than  peace. 
As  Humboldt  says,  "  The  finest  fruit  earth  holds  up  to 
its  Maker  is  a  man."  To  ripen,  lift,  and  educate  a  man 
is  the  first  duty.  Trade,  law,  learning,  science,  and 
religion  are  only  the  scaffolding  wherewith  to  build  a 
man.  Despotism  looks  down  into  the  poor  man's  cradle, 
and  knows  it  can  crush  resistance '  and  curb  ill-will. 
Democracy  sees  the  ballot  in  that  baby-hand  ;  and  sel- 
fishness bids  her  put  integrity  on  one  side  of  those  baby 
footsteps  and  intelligence  on  the  other,  lest  her  own 
hearth  be  in  peril.  Thank  God  for  His  method  of  tak- 
ing bonds  of  wealth  and  culture  to  share  all  their  bless- 
ings with  the  humblest  soul  He  gives  to  their  keeping ! 
The  American  should  cherish  as  serene  a  faith  as  his 
fathers  had.  Instead  of  seeking  a  coward  safety  by 
battening  down  the  hatches  and  putting  men  back  into 
chains,  he  should  recognize  that  God  places  him  in  this 
peril  that  he  may  work  out  a  noble  security  by  concen- 
trating all  moral  forces  to  lift  this  weak,  rotting,  and 
dangerous  mass  into  sunlight  and  health.  The  fathers 
touched  their  highest  level  when,  with  stout-hearted 
and  serene  faith,  they  trusted  God  that  it  was  safe  to 
leave  men  witli  all  the  rights  he  gave  them.  Let  us 
be  worthy  of  their  blood,  and  save  this  sheet-anchor  of 
the  race,  —  universal  suffrage,  —  God's  church,  God's 
school,  God's  method  of  gently  binding  men  into  com- 
monwealths in  order  that  they  may  at  last  melt  into 
brothers. 

I  urge  on  college-bred  men,  that,  as  a  class,  they  fail 
in  republican  duty  when  they  allow  others  to  lead  in  the 
agitation  of  the  great  social  questions  which  stir  and 
educate^  the  age.  Agitation  is  an  old  word  with  a  new 
meaning.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  the  first  English  leader  who 
felt  himself  its  tool,  denned  it  to  be  "  marshalling  the 


350  THE   SCHOLAR   IN   A    REPUBLIC. 

conscience  of  a  nation  to  mould  its  laws."  Its  means 
are  reason  and  argument,  —  no  appeal  to  arms.  Wait 
patiently  for  the  growth  of  public  opinion.  That  se- 
cured, then  every  step  taken  is  taken  forever.  An 
abuse  once  removed  never  reappears  in  history.  The 
freer  a  nation  becomes,  the  more  utterly  democratic  in 
its  form,  the  more  need  of  this  outside  agitation.  Par- 
ties and  sects  laden  with  the  burden  of  securing  their 
own  success  cannot  afford  to  risk  new  ideas.  "  Pre- 
dominant opinions,"  said  Disraeli,  "  are  the  opinions  of 
a  class  that  is  vanishing."  The  agitator  must  stand  out- 
side of  organizations,  with  no  bread  to  earn,  no  candi- 
date to  elect,  no  party  to  save,  no  object  but  truth,  —  to 
tear  a  question  open  and  riddle  it  with  light. 

In  all  modern  constitutional  governments,  agitation 
is  the  only  peaceful  method  of  progress.  Wilberforce 
and  Clarkson,  Rowland  Hill  and  Romilly,  Cobden  and 
John  Bright,  Garrison  and  O'Connell,  have  been  the 

I  master-spirits  in  this  new  form  of  crusade.  Rarely  in 
this  country  have  scholarly  men  joined,  as  a  class,  in 
these  great  popular  schools,  in  these  social  movements 
which  make  the  great  interests  of  society  "  crash  and 
jostle  against  each  other  like  frigates  in  a  storm." 

It  is  not  so  much  that  the  people  need  us,  or  will  feel 
any  lack  from  our  absence.  They  can  do  without  us. 
By  sovereign  and  superabundant  strength  they  can 
crush  their  way  through  all  obstacles. 

"They  will  march  prospering,  — not  through  our  presence  ; 
Songs  will  inspirit  them,  —  not  from  our  lyre  ; 
Deeds  will  be  done,  —  while  we  boast  our  quiescence, 
Still  bidding  crouch  whom  the  rest  bid  aspire." 

The  misfortune  is,  we  lose  a  God-given  opportunity 
of  making  the  change  an  unmixed  good,  or  with  the 
slightest  possible  share  of  evil,  and  are  recreant  besides 
to  a  special  duty.  These  "  agitations "  are  the  oppor- 


THE   SCHOLAR   IN    A    REPUBLIC.  351 

tunities  and  the  means  God  offers  us  to  refine  the  taste, 
mould  the  character,  lift  the  purpose,  and  educate  the 
moral  sense  of  the  masses  on  whose  intelligence  and 
self-respect  rests  the  State.  God  furnishes  these  texts. 
He  gathers  for  us  this  audience,  and  only  asks  of  our 
coward  lips  to  preach  the  sermons. 

There  have  heen  four  or  five  of  these  great  oppor- 
tunities. The  crusade  against  slavery  —  that  grand 
hypocrisy  which  poisoned  the  national  life  of  two  gen- 
erations—  was  one,  —  a  conflict  between  two  civiliza- 
tions which  threatened  to  rend  the  Union.  Almost 
every  element  among  us  was  stirred  to  take  a  part  in 
the  battle.  Every  great  issue,  civil  and  moral,  was  in- 
volved,—  toleration  of  opinion,  limits  of  authority,  rela- 
tion of  citizen  to  law,  place  of  the  Bible,  priest  and 
layman,  sphere  of  woman,  question  of  race,  State  rights 
and  nationality  ;  and  Channing  testified  that  free  speech 
and  free  printing  owed  their  preservation  to  the  struggle. 
But  the  pulpit  flung  the  Bible  at  the  reformer ;  law  vis- 
ited him  with  its  penalties ;  society  spewed  him  out  of 
its  mouth ;  bishops  expurgated  the  pictures  of  their 
Common  Prayer  Books ;  and  editors  omitted  pages  in 
republishing  English  history  ;  even  Pierpont  emascu- 
lated his  Class-book  ;  Bancroft  remodelled  his  chapters  ; 
and  Everett  carried  Washington  through  thirty  States, 
remembering  to  forget  the  brave  words  the  wise  Vir- 
ginian had  left  on  record  warning  his  countrymen  of 
this  evil.  Amid  this  battle  of  the  giants,  scholarship 
sat  dumb  for  thirty  years  until  imminent  deadly  peril 
convulsed  it  into  action,  and  colleges,  in  their  despair, 
gave  to  the  army  that  help  they  had  refused  to  the 
market-place  and  the  rostrum. 

There  was  here  and  there  an  exception.  That  earth- 
quake scholar  at  Concord,  whose  serene  word,  like  a 
whisper  among  the  avalanches,  topples  down  supersti- 


352          THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

tions  and  prejudices,  was  at  his  post,  and  with  half  a 
score  of  others,  made  the  exception  that  proved  the 
rule.  Pulpits,  just  so  far  as  they  could  not  hoast  of 
culture,  and  nestled  closest  down  among  the  masses, 
were  infinitely  braver  than  the  "  spires  and  antique 
towers"  of  stately  collegiate  institutions. 

Then  came  reform  of  penal  legislation,  —  the  effort 
to  make  law  mean  justice,  and  substitute  for  its  bar- 
barism Christianity  and  civilization.  In  Massachusetts, 
Rantoul  represents  Beccaria  and  Livingston,  Mackin- 
tosh and  Romilly.  I  doubt  if  he  ever  had  one  word  of 
encouragement  from  Massachusetts  letters ;  and  with  a 
single  exception,  I  have  never  seen,  till  within  a  dozen 
years,  one  that  could  be  called  a  scholar  active  in 
moving  the  legislature  to  reform  its  code. 

The  London  Times  proclaimed,  twenty  years  ago, 
that  intemperance  produced  more  idleness,  crime,  dis- 
ease, want,  and  misery,  than  all  other  causes  put  to- 
gether;  and  the  Westminster  Review  calls  it  a  "curse 
that  far  eclipses  every  other  calamity  under  whicli 
we  suffer."  Gladstone,  speaking  as  prime  minister, 
admitted  that  "  greater  calamities  are  inflicted  on 
mankind  by  intemperance  than  by  the  three  great  his- 
torical scourges,  —  war,  pestilence,  and  famine."  De 
Quincey  says,  "  The  most  remarkable  instance  of  a  com- 
bined movement  in  society  which  history,  perhaps,  will 
be  summoned  to  notice,  is  that  which,  in  our  day,  has 
applied  itself  to  the  abatement  of  intemperance.  T\vo 
vast  movements  are  hurrying  into  action  by  velocities 
continually  accelerated,  —  the  great  revolutionary  move- 
ment from  political  causes,  concurring  with  the  great 
physical  movement  in  locomotion  and  social  intercourse 
.  from  the  gigantic  power  of  steam.  At  the  opening  of 
such  a  crisis,  had  no  third  movement  arisen  of  resistance 
to  intemperate  habits,  there  would  have  been  ground  of 


THE   SCHOLAR   IN    A   REPUBLIC.  353 

despondency  as  to  the  melioration  of  the  human  race." 
These  are  English  testimonies,  where  the  State  rests 
more  than  half  on  bayonets.  Here  we  are  trying  to 
rest  the  ballot-box  on  a  drunken  people.  "  We  can 
rule  a  great  city,"  said  Sir  Robert  Peel,  "America  can- 
not ; "  and  he  cited  the  mobs  of  New  York  as  sufficient 
proof  of  his  assertion. 

Thoughtful  men  see  that  up  to  this  hour  the  govern- 
ment of  great  cities  has  been  with  us  a  failure;  that 
worse  than  the  dry-rot  of  legislative  corruption,  than 
the  rancor  of  party  spirit,  than  Southern  barbarism, 
than  even  the  tyranny  of  incorporated  wealth,  is  the 
giant  burden  of  intemperance,  making  universal  suf- 
frage a  failure  and  a  curse  in  every  great  city.  Scholars 
who  play  statesmen,1  and  editors  who  masquerade  as 
scholars,  can  waste  much  excellent  anxiety  that  clerks 
shall  get  no  office  until  they  know  the  exact  date  of 
Caesar's  assassination,  as  well  as  the  latitude  of  Pekin, 
and  the  Rule  of  Three.  But  while  this  crusade  —  the 
Temperance  movement  —  has  been,  for  sixty  years,  gath- 
ering its  facts  and  marshalling  its  arguments,  rallying 
parties,  besieging  legislatures,  and  putting  great  States 
on  the  witness-stand  as  evidence  of  the  soundness  of  its 
methods,  scholars  have  given  it  nothing  but  a  sneer. 
But  if  universal  suffrage  ever  fails  here  for  a  time,  —  per- 
manently it  cannot  fail,  —  it  will  not  be  incapable  civil 
service,  nor  an  ambitious  soldier,  nor  Southern  vandals, 
nor  venal  legislatures,  nor  the  greed  of  wealth,  nor  boy 
statesmen  rotten  before  they  are  ripe,  that  will  put  uni- 
versal suffrage  into  eclipse :  it  will  be  rum  intrenched 
in  great  cities  and  commanding  every  vantage  ground. 

Social  science  affirms  that  woman's  place  in  society 
marks  the  level  of  civilization.  From  its  twilight  in 

1  Vide  note  at  the  end  of  this  lecture,  page  363. 
23 


354  THE    SCHOLAR   IN    A    REPUBLIC. 

Greece,  through  the  Italian  worship  of  the  Virgin,  the 
dreams  of  chivalry,  the  justice  of  the  civil  law,  and  the 
equality  of  French  society,  we  trace  her  gradual  recog- 
nition ;  while  our  common  law,  as  Lord  Brougham  con- 
fessed, was,  with  relation  to  women,  the  opprobrium  of 
the  age  and  of  Christianity.  For  forty  years  plain  men 
and  women,  working  noiselessly,  have  washed  away  that 
opprobrium  ;  the  statute-books  of  thirty  States  have  been 
remodelled,  and  woman  stands  to-day  almost  face  to 
face  with  her  last  claim,  —  the  ballot.  It  has  been  a 
weary  and  thankless,  though  successful,  struggle.  But 
if  there  be  any  refuge  from  that  ghastly  curse,  —  the  vice 
of  great  cities,  before  which  social  science  stands  pal- 
sied and  dumb,  —  it  is  in  this  more  equal  recognition  of 
woman.  If,  in  this  critical  battle  for  universal  suffrage, 
—  our  fathers'  noblest  legacy  to  us,  and  the  greatest 
trust  God  leaves  in  our  hands,  —  there  be  any  weapon, 
which  once  taken  from  the  armory  will  make  victory 
certain,  it  will  be,  as  it  has  been  in  art,  literature,  and 
society,  summoning  woman  into  the  political  arena. 

But  at  any  rate,  up  to  this  point,  putting  suffrage 
aside,  there  can  be  no  difference  of  opinion ;  everything 
born  of  Christianity,  or  allied  to  Grecian  culture  or 
Saxon  law,  must  rejoice  in  the  gain.  The  literary 
class,  until  within  half  a  dozen  years,  has  taken  note  of 
this  great  uprising  only  to  fling  every  obstacle  in  its  way. 
The  first  glimpse  we  get  of  Saxon  blood  in  history  is 
that  line  of  Tacitus  in  his  "  Germany,"  which  reads, 
"  In  all  grave  matters  they  consult  their  women." 
Years  hence,  when  robust  Saxon  sense  has  flung  away 
Jewish  superstition  and  Eastern  prejudice,  and  put 
under  its  foot  fastidious  scholarship  and  squeamish 
fashion,  some  second  Tacitus,  from  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi,  will  answer  to  him  of  the  Seven  Hills,  "  In 
all  grave  questions  we  consult  our  women." 


THE    SCHOLAR   IN    A    REPUBLIC.  355 

I  used  to  think  that  then  we  could  say  to  letters  as 
Henry  of  Navarre  wrote  to  the  Sir  Philip  Sidney  of  his 
realm,  Crillon,  "  the  bravest  of  the  brave,"  "  We  have 
conquered  at  Arques,  et  tu  rfy  etais  pas,  Crillon"  — 
u  You  were  not  there,  my  Crillon."  But  a  second 
thought  reminds  me  that  what  claims  to  be  literature 
has  been  always  present  in  that  battlefield,  and  always 
in  the  ranks  of  the  foe. 

Ireland  is  another  touchstone  which  reveals  to  us 
how  absurdly  we  masquerade  in  democratic  trappings 
while  we  have  gone  to  seed  in  Tory  distrust  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  false  to  every  duty,  which,  as  eldest-born  of  demo- 
cratic institutions,  we  owe  to  the  oppressed,  and  careless 
of  the  lesson  every  such  movement  may  be  made  in 
keeping  public  thought,  clear,  keen,  and  fresh  as  to 
principles  which  are  the  essence  of  our  civilization,  the 
groundwork  of  all  education  in  republics. 

Sydney  Smith  said,  "  The  moment  Ireland  is  men- 
tioned the  English  seem  to  bid  adieu  to  common-sense, 
and  to  act  with  the  barbarity  of  tyrants  and  the-  fatuity 
of  idiots.  ...  As  long  as  the  patient  will  suffer,  the 
cruel  will  kick.  ...  If  the  Irish  go  on  withholding  and 
forbearing,  and  hesitating  whether  this  is  the  time  for 
discussion  or  that  is  the  time,  they  will  be  laughed 
at  another  century  as  fools,  and  kicked  for  another 
century  as  slaves."  Byron  called  England's  Union  with 
Ireland  "  the  union  of  the  shark  with  his  prey."  Ben-1 
tham's  conclusion,  from  a  survey  of  five  hundred  years 
of  European  history,  was,  "  Only  by  making  the  ruling 
few  uneasy  can  the  oppressed  many  obtain  a  particle 
of  relief."  Edmund  Burke  —  Burke,  the  noblest  fig- 
ure in  the  Parliamentary  history  of  the  last  hundred 
years,  greater  than  Cicero  in  the  senate  and  almost 
Plato  in  the  academy — Burke  affirmed,  a  century  ago, 
"  Ireland  has  learned  at  last  that  justice  is  to  be  had  from 


356  THE   SCHOLAR   IN   A    REPUBLIC. 

England  only  when  demanded  at  the  sword's  point." 
And  a  century  later,  only  last  year,  Gladstone  himself 
proclaimed  in  a  public  address  in  Scotland,  "  England 
never  concedes  anything  to  Ireland  except  when  moved 
to  do  so  by  fear." 

When  we  remember  these  admissions,  we  ought  to 
clap  our  hands  at  every  fresh  Irish  "  outrage,"  as  a  par- 
rot-press styles  it,  aware  that  it  is  only  a  far-off  echo 
of  the  musket-shots  that  rattled  against  the  Old  State 
House  on  the  5th  of  March,  1770,  and  of  the  war- 
whoop  that  made  the  tiny  spire  of  the  Old  South  trem- 
ble when  Boston  rioters  emptied  the  three  India  tea- 
ships  into  the  sea,  —  welcome  evidence  of  living  force 
and  rare  intelligence  in  the  victim,  and  a  sign  that 
the  day  of  deliverance  draws  each  hour  nearer.  Cease 
ringing  endless  changes  of  eulogy  on  the  men  who 
made  North's  Boston  port-bill  a  failure,  while  every 
leading  journal  sends  daily  over  the  water  wishes  for 
the  success  of  Gladstone's  copy  of  the  bill  for  Ireland. 
If  all  rightful  government  rests  on  consent,  —  if,  as  the 
French  say,  you  "  can  do  almost  anything  with  a  bayonet 
except  sit  on  it,"  —  be  at  least  consistent,  and  denounce 
the  man  who  covers  Ireland  with  regiments  to  hold  up  a 
despotism  which,  within  twenty  months,  he  has  confessed 
rests  wholly  upon  fear. 

Then  note  the  scorn  and  disgust  with  which  we 
gather  up  our  garments  about  us  and  disown  the  Sam 
Adams  and  William  Prescott,  the  George  Washington 
and  John  Brown,  of  St.  Petersburg,  the  spiritual  de- 
scendants, the  living  representatives  of  those  who  make 
our  history  worth  anything  in  the  worlds  annals,  —  the 
Nihilists. 

Nihilism  is  the  righteous  and  honorable  resistance  of 
a  people  crushed  under  an  iron  rule.  Nihilism  is  evi- 
dence of  life.  When  "  order  reigns  in  Warsaw,"  it  is 


THE   SCHOLAR   IN   A    REPUBLIC.  357 

spiritual  death.  Nihilism  is  the  last  weapon  of  victims 
choked  and  manacled  beyond  all  other  resistance.  -It 
is  crushed  humanity's  only  means  of  making  the  op- 
pressor tremble.  God  means  that  unjust  power  shall 
be  insecure  ;  and  every  move  of  the  giant,  prostrate  in 
chains,  whether  it  be  to  lift  a  single  dagger,  or  stir  a 
city's  revolt,  is  a  lesson  in  justice.  One  might  well 
tremble  for  the  future  of  the  race  if  such  a  despotism 
could  exist  without  provoking  the  bloodiest  resistance. 
1  honor  Nihilism,  since  it  redeems  human  nature  from 
the  suspicion  of  being  utterly  vile,  made  up  only  of 
heartless  oppressors  and  contented  slaves.  Every  line 
in  our  history,  every  interest  of  civilization,  bids  us 
rejoice  when  the  tyrant  grows  pale  and  the  slave  rebel- 
lious. We  cannot  but  pity  the  suffering  of  any  human 
being,  however  richly  deserved ;  but  such  pity  must 
not  confuse  our  moral  sense.  Humanity  gains.  Chat- 
ham rejoiced  when  our  fathers  rebelled.  For  every 
single  reason  they  alleged,  Russia  counts  a  hundred, 
each  one  ten  times  bitterer  than  any  Hancock  or 
Adams  could  give.  Sam  Johnson's  standing  toast  in 
Oxford  port  was,  "  Success  to  the  first  insurrection  of 
slaves  in  Jamaica,"  —  a  sentiment  Southey  echoed. 
u  Eschew  cant,"  said  that  old  moralist.  But  of  all  the 
cants  that  are  canted  in  this  canting  world,  though  the 
cant  of  piety  may  be  the  worst,  the  cant  of  Americans 
bewailing  Russian  Nihilism  is  the  most  disgusting. 

I  know  what  reform  needs,  and  all  it  needs,  in  a  land 
where  discussion  is  free,  the  press  untrammelled,  and 
where  public  halls  protect  debate.  There,  as  Emerson 
says,  "  What  the  tender  and  poetic  youth  dreams  to-day, 
and  conjures  up  with  inarticulate  speech,  is  to-morrow 
the  vociferated  result  of  public  opinion,  and  the  day 
after  is  the  charter  of  nations."  Lieber  said,  in  1870, 
"  Bismarck  proclaims  to-day  in  the  Diet  the  very  princi- 


358          THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

pies  for  which  we  were  hunted  and  exiled  fifty  years 
ago."  Submit  to  risk  your  daily  bread,  expect  social 
ostracism,  count  on  a  mob  now  and  then,  "  be  in  ear- 
nest, don't  equivocate,  don't  excuse,  don't  retreat  a  sin- 
gle inch,"  and  you  will  finally  be  heard.  No  matter 
how  long  and  weary  the  waiting,  at  last, — 

"  Ever  the  truth  comes  uppermost, 
And  ever  is  justice  done  ;  " 

"  For  Humanity  sweeps  onward 

Where  to-day  the  martyr  stands 
On  the  morrow  crouches  Judas, 
With  the  silver  in  his  hands ; 

"  Far  in  front  the  cross  stands  ready, 

And  the  crackling  fagots  burn, 
While  the  hooting  mob  of  yesterday 

In  silent  awe  return 
To  glean  up  the  scattered  ashes 

Into  History's  golden  urn." 

In  such  a  land  he  is  doubly  and  trebly  guilty  who, 
except  in  some  most  extreme  case,  disturbs  the  sober 
rule  of  law  and  order. 

But  such  is  not  Russia.  In  Russia  there  is  no  press, 
no  debate,  no  explanation  of  what  government  does,  no 
remonstrance  allowed,  no  agitation  of  public  issues. 
Dead  silence,  like  that  which  reigns  at  the  summit  of 
Mont  Blanc,  freezes  the  whole  empire,  long  ago  de- 
scribed as  "  a  despotism  tempered  by  assassination." 
Meanwhile,  such  despotism  has  unsettled  the  brains  of 
the  ruling  family,  as  unbridled  power  doubtless  made 
some  of  the  twelve  Caesars  insane,  —  a  madman  sporting 
with  the  lives  and  comfort  of  a  hundred  millions  of  men. 
The  young  girl  whispers  in  her  mother's  ear,  under  a 
ceiled  roof,  her  pity  for  a  brother  knouted  and  dragged 
half  dead  into  exile  for  his  opinions.  The  next  week 


THE    SCHOLAR    IN    A    REPUBLIC.  359 

she  is  stripped  naked  and  flogged  to  death  in  the  public 
square.  No  inquiry,  no  explanation,  no  trial,  no  pro- 
test ;  one  dead  uniform  silence,  —  the  law  of  the  tyrant. 
Where  is  there  ground  for  any  hope  of  peaceful  change  ? 
Where  the  fulcrum  upon  which  you  can  plant  any  pos- 
sible lever ? 

Macchiavelli's  sorry  picture  of  poor  human  nature 
would  be  fulsome  flattery  if  men  could  keep  still  under 
such  oppression.  No,  no  !  in  such  a  land  dynamite  and 
the  dagger  are  the  necessary  and  proper  substitutes  for 
Faneuil  Hall  and  the  Daily  Advertiser.  Anything  that 
will  make  the  madman  quake  in  his  bedchamber,  and 
rouse  his  victims  into  reckless  and  desperate  resistance. 
This  is  the  only  view  an  American,  the  child  of  1620 
and  1776,  can  take  of  Nihilism.  Any  other  unsettles 
and  perplexes  the  ethics  of  our  civilization. 

Born  within  sight  of  Bunker  Hill,  in  a  commonwealth 
which  adopts  the  motto  of  Algernon  Sydney,  sub  libertate 
quietem  ("  accept  no  peace  without  liberty") ;  son  of 
Harvard,  whose  first  pledge  was  "  Truth  ;  "  citizen  of  a 
republic  based  on  the  claim  that  no  government  is 
rightful  unless  resting  on  the  consent  of  the  people, 
and  which  assumes  to  lead  in  asserting  the  rights  of 
humanity,  —  I  at  least  can  say  nothing  else  and  nothing 
less  ;  no,  not  if  every  tile  on  Cambridge  roofs  were  a 
devil  hooting  my  words  ! 

I  shall  bow  to  any  rebuke  from  those  who  hold  Chris- 
tianity to  command  entire  non-resistance.  But  criticism 
from  any  other  quarter  is  only  that  nauseous  hypocrisy 
which,  stung  by  threepenny  tea-tax,  piles  Bunker  Hill 
with  granite  and  statues,  prating  all  the  time  of  patriot- 
ism and  broadswords,  while,  like  another  Pecksniff,  it 
recommends  a  century  of  dumb  submission  and  entire 
non-resistance  to  the  Russians,  who  for  a  hundred 
years  have  seen  their  sons  by  thousands  dragged  to 


360          THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

death  or  exile,  no  one  knows  which,  in  this  worse  than 
Venetian  mystery  of  police,  and  their  maidens  flogged 
to  death  in  the  market-place,  and  who  share  the  same 
fate  if  they  presume  to  ask  the  reason  why. 

"  It  is  unfortunate,"  says  Jefferson,  "  that  the  efforts 
of  mankind  to  secure  the  freedom  of  which  they  have 
been  deprived,  should  be  accompanied  with  violence  and 
even  with  crime.  But  while  we  weep  over  the  means, 
we  must  pray  for  the  end."  Pray  fearlessly  for  such 
ends  ;  there  is  no  risk  !  "  Men  are  all  tories  by  nature," 
says  Arnold,  "  when  tolerably  well  off  ;  only  monstrous 
injustice  and  atrocious  cruelty  can  rouse  them."  Some 
talk  of  the  rashness  of  the  uneducated  classes.  Alas ! 
ignorance  is  far  oftener  obstinate  than  rash.  Against 
one  French  Revolution  —  that  scarecrow  of  the  ages  — 
weigh  Asia,  "  carved  in  stone,"  and  a  thousand  years  of 
Europe,  with  her  half-dozen  nations  meted  out  and 
trodden  down  to  be  the  dull  and  contented  footstools 
of  priests  and  kings.  The  customs  of  a  thousand  years 
ago  are  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  passing  generation,  so 
deeply  buried,  so  fixed,  that  the  most  violent  efforts  of 
the  maddest  fanatic  can  drag  it  but  a  hand's-breadth. 

Before  the  war,  Americans  were  like  the  crowd  in 
that  terrible  hall  of  Eblis  which  Beckford  painted  for 
us,  —  each  man  with  his  hand  pressed  on  the  incurable 
sore  in  his  bosom,  and  pledged  not  to  speak  of  it ;  com- 
pared with  other  lands,  we  were  intellectually  and 
morally  a  nation  of  cowards. 

When  I  first  entered  the  Roman  States,  a  custom- 
house official  seized  all  my  French  books.  In  vain  I 
held  up  to  him  a  treatise  by  Fe*nelon,  and  explained 
that  it  was  by  a  Catholic  archbishop  of  Cambray. 
Gruffly  he  answered,  "  It  makes  no  difference ;  it  is 
French"  As  I  surrendered  the  volume  to  his  remorse- 
less grasp,  I  could  not  but  honor  the  nation  which  had 


THE   SCHOLAR    IN    A    REPUBLIC.  361 

made  its  revolutionary  purpose  so  definite  that  despot- 
ism feared  its  very  language.  I  only  wished  that  in- 
justice and  despotism  everywhere  might  one  day  have 
as  good  cause  to  hate  and  to  fear  everything  American. 

At  last  that  disgraceful  seal  of  slave  complicity  is 
broken.  Let  us  inaugurate  a  new  departure,  recognize 
that  we  are  afloat  on  the  current  of  Niagara,  eternal 
vigilance  the  condition  of  our  safety,  that  we  are  ir- 
revocably pledged  to  the  world  not  to  go  back  to  bolts 
and  bars,  —  could  not  if  we  would,  and  would  not  if  we 
could.  Never  again  be  ours  the  fastidious  scholarship 
that  shrinks  from  rude  contact  with  the  masses.  Very 
pleasant  it  is  to  sit  high  up  in  the  world's  theatre  and 
criticise  the  ungraceful  struggles  of  the  gladiators,  shrug 
one's  shoulders  at  the  actors'  harsh  cries,  and  let  every 
one  know  that  but  for  "  this  villanous  saltpetre  you 
would  yourself  have  been  a  soldier."  But  Bacon  says, 
"  In  the  theatre  of  man's  life,  God  and  his  angels  only 
should  be  lookers-on."  "  Sin  is  not  taken  out  of  man 
as  Eve  was  out  of  Adam,  by  putting  him  to  sleep." 
"  Very  beautiful,"  says  Richter,  "  is  the  eagle  when  he 
floats  with  outstretched  wings  aloft  in  the  clear  blue ; 
but  sublime  when  he  plunges  down  through  the  tempest 
to  his  eyry  on  the  cliff,  where  his  unfledged  young  ones 
dwell  and  are  starving."  Accept  proudly  the  analysis  of 
Fisher  Ames :  "  A  monarchy  is  a  man-of-war,  stanch, 
iron-ribbed,  and  resistless  when  under  full  sail  ;  yet  a 
single  hidden  rock  sends  her  to  the  bottom.  Our  repub- 
lic is  a  raft  hard  to  steer,  and  your  feet  always  wet ;  but 
nothing  can  sink  her."  If  the  Alps,  piled  in  cold  and 
silence,  be  the  emblem  of  despotism,  we  joyfully  take 
the  ever-restless  ocean  for  ours,  —  only  pure  because 
never  still. 

Journalism  must  have  more  self-respect.  Now  it 
praises  good  and  bad  men  so  indiscriminately  that  a 


362  THE   SCHOLAR   IN    A   REPUBLIC. 

good  word  from  nine  tenths  of  our  journals  is  worthless. 
In  burying  our  Aaron  Burrs,  both  political  parties  —  in 
order  to  get  the  credit  of  magnanimity  —  exhaust  the 
vocabulary  of  eulogy  so  thoroughly  that  there  is  nothing 
left  with  which  to  distinguish  our  John  Jays.  The  love 
of  a  good  name  in  life  and  a  fair  reputation  to  survive 
us —  that  strong  bond  to  well-doing  —  is  lost  where 
every  career,  however  stained,  is  covered  with  the  same 
fulsome  flattery,  and  where  what  men  say  in  the  streets 
is  the  exact  opposite  of  what  they  say  to  each  other. 
De  mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum,  most  men  translate,  "  Speak 
only  good  of  the  dead."  I  prefer  to  construe  it,  "  Of  the 
dead  say  nothing  unless  you  can  tell  something  good." 
And  if  the  sin  and  the  recreancy  have  been  marked  and 
far-reaching  in  their  evil,  even  the  charity  of  silence  is 
not  permissible. 

To  be  as  good  as  our  fathers  we  must  be  better. 
They  silenced  their  fears  and  subdued  their  prejudices, 
inaugurating  free  speech  and  equality  with  no  precedent 
on  the  file.  Europe  shouted  "  Madmen  !  "  and  gave  us 
forty  years  for  the  shipwreck.  With  serene  faith  they 
persevered.  Let  us  rise  to  their  level.  Crush  appetite, 
and  prohibit  temptation  if  it  rots  great  cities.  Intrench 
labor  in  sufficient  bulwarks  against  that  wealth  which, 
without  the  tenfold  strength  of  modern  incorporation, 
wrecked  the  Grecian  and  Roman  States ;  and  with  a 
sterner  effort  still,  summon  women  into  civil  life  as  re- 
inforcement to  our  laboring  ranks  in  the  effort  to  make 
our  civilization  a  success. 

Sit  not,  like  the  figure  on  our  silver  coin,  looking  ever 
backward. 

"  New  occasions  teach  new  duties  ; 
Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth; 
They  must  upward  still,  and  onward, 
Who  would  keep  abreast  of  Truth. 


THE   SCHOLAR    IN    A    REPUBLIC.  363 

Lo  !  before  us  gleam  her  camp-fires  ! 
We  ourselves  must  Pilgrims  be, 
Launch  our  Mayflower,  and  steer  boldly 
Through  the  desperate  winter  sea, 
Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portal 
With  the  Fast's  blootl-rusted  key." 


NOTE.  —  See  page  353. 

For  George  William  Curtis,  the  leader  of  the  civil-service  reform, 
I  have  the  most  sincere  respect.  His  place  as  statesman,  scholar, 
and  reformer  is  such,  and  so  universally  recognized,  that  praise  from 
me  would  be  almost  impertinence.  But  a  large  proportion  of  the 
party  in  New  York,  and  a  still  larger  proportion  of  its  adherents  in 
Massachusetts,  justify  all  I  have  said  of  it  and  them. 

My  plan  of  civil-service  reform  would  be  the  opposite  of  what  they 
propose.  I  should  seek  a  remedy  for  the  evils  they  describe  in  a 
wholly  different  direction  from  theirs,  —  in  fearless  recourse  to  a 
further  extension  of  the  democratic  principles  of  our  institutions. 

Let  each  district  choose  its  own  postmaster  and  custom-house  offi- 
cials. This  course  would  appeal  to  the  best  sense  and  sober  second 
thought  of  each  district.  Responsibility  would  purify  and  elevate 
the  masses,  while  government  would  be  relieved  from  that  mass  or 
patronage  which  debauches  it. 

Their  plan  is  impracticable,  and  ought  to  be  ;  for  it  contravenes 
the  fundamental  idea  of  our  institutions,  and  contemplates  a  coterie 
of  men  kept  long  in  office,  largely  independent  of  the  people,  —  a 
miniature  aristocracy,  filled  with  a  dangerous  esprit  de  corps.  The 
liberal  party  in  England  has  long  felt  the  dead  weight  and  obstruc- 
tive influence  of  such  a  class.  The  worst  element  at  Washington  in 
1861  ;  the  one  that  hated  Lincoln  most  bitterly,  and  gave  him  the 
most  trouble  ;  the  one  that  resisted  the  new  order  of  things  most 
angrily  and  obstinately,  and  put  the  safety  of  the  city  into  most 
serious  peril, — was  the  body  of  old  office-holders,  poisoned  with 
length  of  official  life,  scoffing  at  the  people  as  intrusive  intermed- 
dlers  ;  men  in  whom  something  like  a  fixed  tenure  of  office  had  killed 
all  sympathy  with  the  democratic  tendency  of  our  system. 

Some  might  fear  that  our  government  could  not  be  carried  on 
without  this  patronage. 


364          THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

Hamilton  is  quoted  as  saying,  li  Purge  the  British  Government  <>i' 
its  corruption,  and  give  to  its  popular  branch  equality  of  representa- 
tion, and  it  would  become  an  impracticable  government." 

The  British  Government  has  been  pretty  well  purged,  and  its  pop- 
ular branch  comes  now  very  near  to  equality  of  representation.  Yet, 
spite  of  Hamilton's  prophecy,  the  machine  still  works,  and  works 
better  and  better  for  every  successive  measure  of  such  purification 
and  reform. 

So  our  government,  relieved  of  the  weight  of  this  debasing  pat- 
ronage, would  disappoint  the  sullen  forebodings  of  Tory  misgiving, 
and  rise  to  nobler  action. 


THE  LORE  OF  LONG  ASO. 

Recent  RosrarclioH  Prove  that  the  Anc 
-uorant. 

g  Dispatch. 

*rious    spirit    of    the 
nocks  at  the  a 


THE    LOST    ARTS. 


No  lecture  in  the  American  lyceum  ever  met  with  a  wider  or  more 
enthusiastic  welcome  than  this.  It  was  first  delivered  in  the  winter 
of  1838-139.  Mr.  Phillips  had  spoken  before  this  upon  subjects  taken 
from  chemistry  and  physics,  and  on  discoveries  and  inventions  in  the 
field  of  mechanics.  Called  suddenly  to  address  a  certain  audience, 
he  thought  there  might  be  a  charm  in  a  familiar  resume  of  those  arts 
which  the  ancients  carried  to  a  perfection  still  unrivalled.  Hastily 
outlined  in  a  series  of  notes,  it  was  an  almost  impromptu  delivery. 
But  so  great  was  the  interest  which  it  excited,  that  Mr.  Phillips  was 
called  to  repeat  it  over  two  thousand  times. 

About  twenty  years  ago  Mr.  Phillips  was  engaged  to  deliver  the 
lecture  in  the  "  Redpath  Lyceum."  A  stenographer  was  employed 
to  make  a  verbatim  report ;  it  was  carefully  written  out  in  full,  was 
elegantly  bound,  and  then  presented  to  its  author.  Mr.  Phillips  ex- 
pressed himself  exceedingly  grateful  to  his  friends,  but  was  much 
overcome  by  the  reply  :  "We  have  not  done  it  for  your  sake,  Mr. 
Phillips,  but  far  posterity." 
• 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  I  am  to  talk  to  you  to-night 
about  "  The  Lost  Arts,"  —  a  lecture  which  has 
grown  under  my  hand  year  after  year,  and  which 
belongs  to  that  first  phase  of  the  lyceum  system,  before 
it  undertook  to  meddle  with  political  duties  or  danger- 
ous and  angry  questions  of  ethics  ;  when  it  was  merely 
an  academic  institution,  trying  to  win  busy  men  back  to 
books,  teaching  a  little  science,  or  repeating  some  tale 
of  foreign  travel,  or  painting  some  great  representative 
character,  the  symbol  of  his  age.  I  think  I  can  claim 
a  purpose  beyond  a  moment's  amusement  in  this  glance 
at  early  civilization. 


366  THE   LOST    ARTS. 

I,  perhaps,  might  venture  to  claim  that  it  was  a 
medicine  for  what  is  the  most  objectionable  feature  of 
our  national  character ;  and  that  is  self-conceit,  —  an  un- 
due appreciation  of  ourselves,  an  exaggerated  estimate 
of  our  achievements,  of  our  inventions,  of  our  contribu- 
tions to  popular  comfort,  and  of  our  place,  in  fact,  in 
the  great  procession  of  the  ages.  We  seem  to  imagine 
that  whether  knowledge  will  die  with  us  or  not,  it 
certainly  began  with  us.  We  have  a  pitying  estimate, 
a  tender  pity,  for  the  narrowness,  ignorance,  and  dark- 
ness of  the  bygone  ages.  We  seem  to  ourselves  not 
only  to  monopolize,  but  to  have  begun,  the  era  of  light. 
In  other  words,  we  are  all  running  over  with  a  fourth- 
day-of-July  spirit  of  self-content.  I  am  often  reminded 
of  the  German  whom  the  English  poet  Coleridge  met 
at  Frankfort.  He  always  took  off  his  hat  with  pro- 
found respect  when  he  ventured  to  speak  of  himself. 
It  seems  to  me,  the  American  people  might  be  painted 
in  the  chronic  attitude  of  taking  off  its  hat  to  itself ; 
and  therefore  it  can  be  no  waste  of  time,  with  an  audi- 
ence in  such  a  mood,  to  take  their  eyes  for  a  moment 
from  the  present  civilization,  and  guide  them  back  to 
that  earliest  possible  era  that  history  describes  for  us, 
if  it  were  only  for  the  purpose  of  asking  whether  we 
boast  on  the  right  line.  I  might  despair  of  curing  us 
of  the  habit  of  boasting,  but  I  might  direct  it  better ! 

Well,  1  have  been  somewhat  criticised,  year  after 
year,  for  this  endeavor  to  open  up  the  claims  of  old 
times.  I  have  been  charged  with  repeating  useless 
fables  with  no  foundation.  To-day  I  take  the  mere 
subject  of  glass.  This  material,  Pliny  says,  was  discov- 
ered by  accident.  Some  sailors,  landing  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  Spain,  took  their  cooking  utensils,  and  sup- 
ported them  on  the  sand  by  the  stones  that  they  found 
in  the  neighborhood  ;  they  kindled  their  fire,  cooked 


THE   LOST  ARTS.  367 

the  fish,  finished  the  meal,  and  removed  the  apparatus ; 
and  glass  was  found  to  have  resulted  from  the  nitre  and 
sea-sand,  vitrified  by  the  heat.  Well,  I  have  been  a 
dozen  times  criticised  by  a  number  of  wise  men,  in 
newspapers,  who  have  said  that  this  was  a  very  idle 
tale,  that  there  never  was  sufficient  heat  in  a  few  bun- 
dles of  sticks  to  produce  vitrification,  —  glass-making. 
I  happened,  two  years  ago,  to  meet,  on  the  prairies  of 
Missouri,  Professor  Shepherd,  who  started  from  Yale 
College,  and,  like  a  genuine  Yankee  , brings  up  any- 
where where  there  is  anything  to  do.  I  happened  to 
mention  this  criticism  to  him.  "  Well,"  says  he,  "  a 
little  practical  life  would  have  freed  men  from  that 
doubt." — Said'  ho,-"  We  stopped  last  year  in  Mexico,  to 
cook  some  venison.  We  got  down  from  our  saddles, 
and  put  the  cooking-apparatus  on  stones  we  found 
there ;  made  our  fire  with  the  wood  we  got  there,  re- 
sembling ebony ;  and  when  we  removed  the  apparatus 
there  was  pure  silver  gotten  out  of  the  embers  by  the 
intense  heat  of  that  almost  iron  wood.*  XNNow,"  said  he, 
"  that  heat  was  greater  than  any  necessary  to  vitrify  the 
materials  of  glass."  Why  not  suppose  that  Pliny's 
sailors  had  lighted  on  some  exceedingly  hard  wood  ? 
May  it  not  be  as  possible  as  in  this  case  ? 

So,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  with  a  growing  habit  of 
distrust  of  a  large  share  of  this  modern  and  exceedingly 
scientific  criticism  of  ancient  records,  I  think  we  have 
been  betraying  our  own  ignorance,  and  that  frequently, 
when  the  statement  does  not  look,  on  the  face  of  it,  to 
be  exactly  accurate,  a  little  investigation  below  the  sur- 
face will  show  that  it  rests  on  a  real  truth.  Take,  for 
instance,  the  English  proverb  which  was  often  quoted 
in  my  college  days.  We  used  to  think  how  little  logic 
the  common  people  had  ;  and  when  we  wanted  to  illus- 
trate this  in  the  school-room,  —  it  was  what  was  called  a 


368  THE    LOST    ARTS. 

non  sequitur :  the  effect  did  not  come  from  the  cause 
named,  —  we  always  quoted  the  English  proverb,  "  Ten- 
terden  steeple  is  the  cause  of  Goodwin  Sands."  We 
said,  "  How  ignorant  a  population  ! "  But  when  we 
went  deeper  into  the  history,  we  found  that  the  proverb 
was  not  meant  for  logic,  but  was  meant  for  sarcasm. 
One  of  the  bishops  had  fifty  thousand  pounds  given  to 
him,  to  build  a  breakwater  to  save  the  Goodwin  Sands 
from  the  advancing  sea ;  but  the  good  bishop,  —  being 
one  of  the  kind  of  bishops  which  Mr.  Froude  describes 
in  his  lecture,  that  the  world  would  be  better  if  Provi- 
dence would  remove  them  from  it,  —  instead  of  build- 
ing the  breakwater  to  keep  out  the  sea,  simply  built  a 
steeple ;  and  this  proverb  was  sarcastic,  and  not  logical, 
that  "  Tenterden  steeple  was  the  cause  of  the  Goodwin 
Sands."  When  you  contemplate  the  motive,  there  was 
the  closest  and  best-welded  logic  in  the  proverb.  So 
I  think  a  large  share  of  our  criticism  of  old  legends 
and  old  statements  will  be  found  in  the  end  to  be  the 
ignorance  that  overleaps  its  own  saddle,  and  falls  on 
the  other  side. 

Well,  my  first  illustration  ought  to  be  this  material, 
glass  ;  but,  before  I  proceed  to  talk  of  these  lost  arts, 
I  ought  in  fairness  to  make  an  exception, —  and  it  is  the 
conception  and  conceit  which  lies  here.  Over  a  very 
large  section  of  literature,  there  is  a  singular  contradic- 
tion to  this  swelling  conceit.  There  are  certain  lines 
in  which  the  moderns  are  ill  satisfied  with  themselves, 
and  contented  to  acknowledge  that  they  ought  fairly  to 
sit  down  at  the  feet  of  their  predecessors.  Take  poetry, 
painting,  sculpture,  architecture,  the  drama,  and  almost 
everything  in  works  of  any  form  that  relates  to  beauty, 
—  with  regard  to  that  whole  sweep,  the  modern  world 
gilds  it  with  its  admiration  of  the  beautiful.  Take  the 
very  phrases  that  we  use.  The  artist  says  he  wishes  to 
t 


THE    LOST    ARTS.  369 

pro  to  Rome.  "  For  what  ? "  "  To  study  the  masters." 
\Vell,  all  the  masters  have  been  in  their  graves  several 
hundred  years.  We  are  all  pupils.  You  tell  the  poet, 
"  Sir,  that  line  of  yours  would  remind  one  of  Homer," 
and  he  is  crazy.  Stand  in  front  of  a  painting,  in  the 
hearing  of  the  artist,  and  compare  its  coloring  to  that 
of  Titian  or  Raphael,  and  he  remembers  you  forever. 
I  remember  once  standing  in  front  of  a  bit  of  marble 
carved  by  Powers,  a  Vermonter  who  had  a  matchless, 
instinctive  love  of  art,  and  perception  of  beauty.  I  said 
to  an  Italian  standing  with  me,  "  Well,  now,  that  seems 
to  me  to  be  perfection."  "Perfection!"  —  was  his 
answer,  shrugging  his  shoulders,  —  "  Why,  sir,  that 
reminds  you  of  Phidias  !  "  as  if  to  remind  you  of  that 
Greek  was  a  greater  compliment  than  to  be  perfection. 

Well,  now  the  very  choice  of  phrases  betrays  a  con- 
fession of  inferiority,  and  you  see  it  again  creeps  out  in 
/  the  amount  we  borrow.     Take  the  whole  range  of  im- 
-  aginative  literature,  and  we  are  all  wholesale  borrowers. 
In   every   matter  that  relates    to    invention,  to  use,  or 
beauty,  or  form,  we  are  borrowers. 

You  may  glance  around  the  furniture  of  the  palaces 
in  Europe,  and  you  may  gather  all  these  utensils  of  art 
or  use ;  and  when  you  have  fixed  the  shape  and  forms 
in  your  mind,  I  will  take  you  into  the  museum  of 
Naples,  which  gathers  all  remains  of  the  domestic  life 
of  the  Romans,  and  you  shall  not  find  a  single  one  of 
these  modern  forms  of  art  or  beauty  or  use  that  was 
not  anticipated  there.  We  have  hardly  added  one 
single  line  or  sweep  of  beauty  to  the  antique. 

Take  the  stories  of  Shakspeare,  who  has  perhaps 
written  his  forty-odd  plays.  Some  are  historical.  The 
rest,  two  thirds  of  them,  he  did  not  stop  to  invent,  but 
he  found  them.  These  he  clutched,  ready  made  to  his 
hand,  from  the  Italian  novelists,  who  had  taken  them 

24 


370  THE    LOST    ARTS. 

before  from  the  East.  Cinderella  and  her  slipper  is 
older  than  all  history,  like  half  a  dozen  other  baby 
legends.  The  annals  of  the  world  do  not  go  back  far 
enough  to  tell  us  from  where  they  first  came. 

All  the  boys'  plays,  like  everything  that  amuses  the 
child  in  the  open  air,  are  Asiatic.  Rawlinson  will  show 
you  that  they  came  somewhere  from  the  banks  of  the 
Ganges  or  the  suburbs  of  Damascus.  Bui  we  r  bor- 
rowed the  incidents  of  his  Roman  stories  from  legends 
of  a  thousand  years  before.  Indeed,  Dunlop,  who  lias 
grouped  the  history  of  the  novels  of  all  Europe  into 
one  essay,  says  that  in  the  nations  of  modern  Europe 
there  have  been  two  hundred  and  fifty  or  three  hundred 
distinct  stories.  He  says  at  least  two  hundred  of  these 
may  be.  traced,  before  Christianity,  to  the  other  side  of 
the  Black  Sea.  If  this  were  my  topic,  which  it  is  not,  1 
might  tell  you  that  even  our  newspaper  jokes  are  enjoy- 
ing a  very  respectable  old  age.  Take  Maria  Edgeworth's 
essay  on  Irish  bulls  and  the  laughable  mistakes  of  the 
Irish.  Even  the  tale  which  either  Maria  Edgeworth  or 
her  father  thought  the  best  is  that  famous  story  of  a 
man  writing  a  letter  as  follows  :  "  My  dear  friend,  I 
would  write  you  in  detail,  more  minutely,  if  there  was 
not  an  impudent  fellow  looking  over  my  shoulder,  read- 
ing every  word."  "  No,  you  lie  ;  I  've  not  read  a  word 
you  have  written !  "  This  is  an  Irish  bull,  still  it  is  a 
very  old  one.  It  is  only  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
older  than  the  New  Testament.  Horace  Walpole  dis- 
sented from  Richard  Lovell  Edgeworth,  and  thought  the 
other  Irish  bull  was  the  best,  —  of  the  man  who  said,  u  I 
would  have  been  a  very  handsome  man,  but  they  changed 
me  in  the  cradle."  That  comes  from  Don  Quixote,  and 
is  Spanish  ;  but  Cervantes  borrowed  it  from  the  Greek 
in  the  fourth  century,  and  the  Greek  stole  it  from  the 
Egyptian  hundreds  of  years  back. 


THE   LOST    ARTS.  371 

There  is  one  story  which  it  is  said  Washington  has 
related,  of  a  man  who  went  into  an  inn,  and  asked  for  a 
glass  of  drink  from  the  landlord,  who  pushed  forward 
a  wine-glass  about  half  the  usual  size  ;  the  tea-cups  also 
in  that  day  were  not  more  than  half  the  present  size. 
The  landlord  said,  "That  glass,  out  of  which  you  are 
drinking  is  forty  years  old."  "Well,"  said  the  thirsty 
traveller,  contemplating  its  diminutive  proportions,  "  I 
think  it  is  the  smallest  thing  of  its  age  I  ever  saw." 
That  story  as  told  is  given  as  a  story  of  Athens  three 
hundred  and  seventy-five  years  before  Christ  was  born. 
Why  !  all  these  Irish  bulls  are  Greek,  —  every  one  of 
them.  Take  the  Irishman  who  carried  around  a  brick 
as  a  specimen  of  the  house  he  had  to  sell ;  take  the  Irish- 
man who  shut  his  eyes  and  looked  into  the  glass  to  see 
how  he  would  look  when  he  was  dead  ;  take  the  Irish- 
man that  bought  a  crow,  alleging  that  crows  were  re- 
ported to  live  two  hundred  years,  and  he  meant  to  set 
out  and  try  it ;  take  the  Irishman  who  met  a  friend  who 
said  to  him,  "  Why,  sir,  I  heard  you  were  dead."  "  Well," 
says  the  man,  "  I  suppose  you  see  I  'm  not."  "  Oh,  no !  " 
says  he,  "  I  would  believe  the  man  who  told  me  a  good 
deal  quicker  than  I  would  you."  Well,  those  are  all 
Greek.  A  score  or  more  of  them,  of  a  parallel  charac- 
ter, come  from  Athens. 

Our  old  Boston  patriots  felt  that  tarring  and  feather- 
ing a  Tory  was  a  genuine  patent  Yankee  fire-brand, — 
Yankeeism.  They  little  imagined  that  when  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion  set  out  on  one  of  his  crusades,  among 
the  orders  he  issued  to  his  camp  of  soldiers  was  that 
any  one  who  robbed  a  hen-roost  should  be  tarred  and 
feathered.  Many  a  man  who  lived  in  Connecticut  has 
repeated  the  story  of  taking  children  to  the  limits  of 
the  town,  and  giving  them  a  sound  thrashing  to  enforce 
their  memory  of  the  spot.  But  the  Burgundians  in 


372  THE    LOST    ARTS. 

France,  in  a  law  now  eleven  hundred  years  old,  attrib- 
uted valor  to  the  east  of  France  because  it  had  a  law 
that  the  children  should  be  taken  to  the  limits  of  the 
district,  and  there  soundly  whipped,  in  order  that  they 
might  forever  remember  where  the  limits  came. 

So  we  have  very  few  new  things  in  that  line.  But  I 
said  I  would  take  the  subject,  for  instance,  of  this  very 
material,  —  glass.  It  is  the  very  best  expression  of 
man's  self-conceit. 

I  had  heard  that  nothing  had  been  observed  in  ancient 
times  which  could  be  called  by  the  name  of  glass,  — 
that  there  had  been  merely  attempts  to  imitate  it.  I 
thought  they  had  proved  the  proposition ;  they  certainly 
had  elaborated  it.  In  Pompeii,  a  dozen  miles  south  of 
Naples,  which  was  covered  with  ashes  by  Vesuvius  eigh- 
teen hundred  years  ago,  they  broke  into  a  room  full  of 
glass:  there  was  ground  glass,  window-glass,  cut-glass, 
and  colored  glass  of  every  variety.  It  was  undoubtedly 
a  glass-maker's  factory.  So  the  lie  and  the  refutation 
came  face  to  face.  It  was  like  a  pamphlet  printed  in 
London,  in  1836,  by  Dr.  Lardner,  which  proved  that  a 
steamboat  could  not  cross  the  ocean ;  and  the  book  came 
to  this  country  in  the  first  steamboat  that  came  across 
the  Atlantic.  (- 

The  chemistry  of  the  most  ancient  period  had  reached 
a  point  which  we  have  never  even  approached,  and  which 
we  in  vain  struggle  to  reach  to-day.  Indeed,  the  whole 
management  of  the  effect  of  light  on  glass  is  still  a 
matter  of  profound  study.  The  first  two  stories  which 
I  have  to  offer  you  are  simply  stories  from  history. 

The  first  is  from  the  letters  of  the  Catholic  priests 
who  broke  into  China,  which  were  published  in  France 
some  two  hundred  years  ago.  They  were  shown  a  glass, 
transparent  and  colorless,  which  was  filled  with  a  liquor 
made  by  the  Chinese,  that  was  shown  to  the  observers, 


THE   LOST   ARTS.  373 

and  appeared  to  be  colorless  like  water.  This  liquor 
was  poured  into  the  glass,  and  then,  looking  through  it, 
it  seemed  to  be  filled  with  fishes.  They  turned  this  out, 
and  repeated  the  experiment,  and  again  it  was  filled 
with  fish.  The  Chinese  confessed  that  they  did  not 
make  them ;  that  they  were  the  plunder  of  some  foreign 
conquest.  This  is  not  a  singular  thing  in  Chinese  his- 
tory ;  for  in  some  of  their  scientific  discoveries  we  have 
found  evidence  that  they  did  not  make  them,  but  stole 
them. 

The  second  story  of  half  a  dozen  —  certainly  five  —  re- 
lates to  the  age  of  Tiberius,  the  time  of  Saint  Paul,  and 
tells  of  a  Roman  who  had  been  banished,  and  who  re- 
turned to  Rome,  bringing  a  wonderful  cup.  This  cup  he 
dashed  upon  the  marble  pavement,  and  it  was  crushed, 
not  broken,  by  the  fall.  It  was  dented  some,  and  with  a 
hammer  he  easily  brought  it  into  shape  again.  It  was 
brilliant,  transparent,  but  not  brittle.  I  had  a  wine- 
glass when  I  made  this  talk  in  New  Haven ;  and  among 
the  audience  was  the  owner,  Professor  Silliman.  He 
was  kind  enough  to  come  to  the  platform  when  I  had 
ended,  and  say  that  he  was  familiar  with  most  of  my 
facts ;  but  speaking  of  malleable  glass,  he  had  this  to 
say,  —  that  it  was  nearly  a  natural  impossibility,  and 
that  no  amount  of  evidence  which  could  be  brought 
would  make  him  credit  it.  Well,  the  Romans  got  their 
chemistry  from  the  Arabians ;  they  brought  it  into  Spain 
eight  centuries  ago,  and  in  their  books  of  that  age  they 
claim  that  they  got  from  the  Arabians  malleable  glass. 
There  is  a  kind  of  glass  spoken  of  there  that,  if  sup- 
ported by  one  end,  by  its  own  weight  in  twenty  hours 
would  dwindle  down  to  a  fine  line,  and  that  you  could 
curve  it  around  your  wrist.  Von  Beust,  the  Chancellor 
of  Austria,  has  ordered  secrecy  in  Hungary  in  regard 
to  a  recently  discovered  process  by  which  glass  can 


374  THE   LOST    ARTS. 

be  used  exactly  like  wool,  and  manufactured  into 
cloth. 

These  are  a  few  records.  When  you  go  to  Rome, 
they  will  show  you  a  bit  of  glass  like  the  solid  rim  of 
this  tumbler,  —  a  transparent  glass,  a  solid  thing,  which 
they  lift  up  so  as  to  show  you  that  there  is  nothing 
concealed  ;  but  in  the  centre  of  the  glass  is  a  drop  of 
colored  glass,  perhaps  as  large  as  a  pea,  mottled  like  a 
duck,  finely  mottled  with  the  shifting  colored  hues  of 
the  neck,  and  which  even  a  miniature  pencil  could  not 
do  more  perfectly.  It  is  manifest  that  this  drop  of 
liquid  glass  must  have  been  poured,  because  there  is 
no  joint.  This  must  have  been  done  by  a  greater  heat 
than  the  annealing  process,  because  that  process  shows 
breaks. 

The  imitation  of  gems  has  deceived  not  only  the  lay 
people,  but  the  connoisseurs.  Some  of  these  imitations 
in  later  years  have  been  discovered.  The  celebrated 
vase  of  the  Genoa  Cathedral  was  considered  a  solid 
emerald.  The  Roman-Catholic  legend  of  it  was,  that  it 
was  one  of  the  treasures  that  the  Queen  of  Sheba  gave 
to  Solomon,  and  that  it  was  the  identical  cup  out  of 
which  the  Saviour  drank  at  the  Last  Supper.  Columbus 
must  have  admired  it ;  it  was  venerable  in  his  day. 
It  was  death  for  anybody  to  touch  it  but  a  Catholic 
priest.  And  when  Napoleon  besieged  Genoa,  —  I  mean 
the  great  Napoleon,  not  the  present  little  fellow,  —  it 
was  offered  by  the  Jews  to  loan  the  Senate  three  mil- 
lion dollars  on  that  single  article  as  security.  Napo- 
leon took  it,  and  carried  it  to  France,  and  gave  it  to 
the  Institute.  Somewhat  reluctantly  the  scholars  said, 
"  It  is  not  a  stone  ;  we  hardly  know  what  it  is." 

Cicero  said  that  he  had  seen  the  entire  Iliad,  which 
is  a  poem  as  large  as  the  New  Testament,  written  on 
a  skin  so  that  it  could  be  rolled  up  in  the  compass  of  a 


THE   LOST    ARTS.  375 

nut-shell.  Now,  this  is  imperceptible  to  the  ordinary 
eye.  You  have  seen  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
in  the  compass  of  a  quarter  of  a  dollar,  written  with 
glasses.  I  have  to-day  a  paper  at  home,  as  long  as  half 
my  hand,  on  which  was  photographed  the  whole  con- 
tents of  a  London  newspaper.  It  was  put  under  a 
dove's  wing,  and  sent  into  Paris,  where  they  enlarged 
it,  and  read  the  news.  This  copy  of  the  Iliad  must 
have  been  made  by  some  such  process. 

In  the  Roman  theatre,  —  the  Coliseum,  which  could 
seat  a  hundred  thousand  people,  —  the  emperor's  box, 
raised  to  the  highest  tier,  bore  about  the  same  propor- 
tion to  the  space  as  this  stand  does  to  this  hall ;  and  to 
look  down  to  the  centre  of  a  six-acre  lot,  was  to  look 
a  considerable  distance.  ("  Considerable,"  by  the  way, 
is  not  a  Yankee  word.  Lord  Chesterfield  uses  it  in 
his  letters  to  his  son,  so  it  has  a  good  English  origin.) 
Pliny  says  that  Nero  the  tyrant  had  a  ring  with  a  gem 
in  it,  which  he  looked  through,  and  watched  the  sword- 
play  of  the  gladiators,  —  men  who  killed  each  other  to 
amuse  the  people,  —  more  clearly  than  with  the  naked 
eye.  So  Nero  had  an  opera-glass. 

So  Mauritius  the  Sicilian  stood  on  the  promontory  of 
his  island,  and  could  sweep  over  the  entire  sea  to  the 
coast  of  Africa  with  his  nauscopite,  which  is  a  word 
derived  from  two  Greek  words,  meaning  "to  see  a  ship." 
Evidently  Mauritius,  who  was  a  pirate,  had  a  marine 
telescope. 

You  may  visit  Dr.  Abbot's  museum,  where  you  will 
sec  the  ring  of  Cheops.  Bunsen  puts  him  five  hundred 
years  before  Christ.  The  signet  of  the  ring  is  about  the 
size  of  a  quarter  of  a  dollar,  and  the  engraving  is  invisi- 
ble without  the  aid  of  glasses.  No  man  was  ever  shown 
into  the  cabinets  of  gems  in  Italy  without  being  fur- 
nished with  a  microscope  to  look  at  them.  It  would  be 


376  THE    LOST    ARTS. 

idle  for  him  to  look  at  them  without  one.  He  could  n't 
appreciate  the  delicate  lines  and  the  expression  of  the 
faces.  If  you  go  to  Parma,  they  will  show  you  a  gem 
once  worn  on  the  finger  of  Michael  Angelo,  of  which 
the  engraving  is  two  thousand  years  old,  on  which  there 
are  the  figures  of  seven  women.  You  must  have  the 
aid  of  a  glass  in  order  to  distinguish  the  forms  at  all. 
I  have  a  friend  who  has  a  ring,  perhaps  three  quarters 
of  an  inch  in  diameter,  and  on  it  is  the  naked  figure  of 
the  god  Hercules.  By  the  aid  of  glasses,  you  can  dis- 
tinguish the  interlacing  muscles,  and  count  every  sepa- 
rate hair  on  the  eyebrows.  Layard  says  he  would  be 
unable  to  read  the  engravings  on  Nineveh  without  strong 
spectacles,  they  are  so  extremely  small.  Rawlinson 
brought  home  a  stone  about  twenty  inches  long  and  ten 
wide,  containing  an  entire  treatise  on  mathematics.  It 
would  be  perfectly  illegible  without  glasses.  Now,  if 
we  are  unable  to  read  it  without  the  aid  of  glasses,  you 
may  suppose  the  man  who  engraved  it  had  pretty  strong 
spectacles.  So  the  microscope,  instead  of  dating  from 
our  time,  finds  its  brothers  in  the  books  of  Moses, —  and 
these  are  infant  brothers. 

So  if  you  take  colors.  Color  is,  we  say,  an  ornament. 
We  dye  our  dresses,  and  ornament  our  furniture.  It  is 
an  ornament  to  gratify  the  eye.  But  the  Egyptians 
impressed  it  into  a  new  service.  For  them,  it  was  a 
method  of  recording  history.  Some  parts  of  their  his- 
tory were  written  ;  but  when  they  wanted  to  elaborate 
history  they  painted  it.  Their  colors  are  immortal,  else 
we  could  not  know  of  it.  We  find  upon  the  stucco  of 
their  walls  their  kings  holding  court,  their  armies  march- 
ing out,  their  craftsmen  in  the  ship-yard,  with  the  ships 
floating  in  the  dock  ;  and,  in  fact,  we  trace  all-their  rites 
and  customs  painted  in  undying  colors.  The  French 
who  went  to  Egypt  with  Napoleon  said  that  all  tho 


THE   LOST   ARTS.  377 

I 

colors  were  perfect  except  the  greenish-white  which 
is  the  hardest  for  us.  They  had  no  difficulty  with  the 
Tyrian  purple.  The  burned  city  of  Pompeii  was  a  city 
of  stucco.  All  the  houses  are  stucco  outside,  and  it 
is  stained  with  Tyrian  purple,  —  the  royal  color  of 
antiquity. 

But  you  never  can  rely  on  the  name  of  a  color  after 
a  thousand  years.  So  the  Tyrian  purple  is  almost  a 
red,  —  about  the  color  of  these  curtains.  This  is  a  city 
all  of  red.  It  had  been  buried  seventeen  hundred  years  ; 
and  if  you  take  a  shovel  now,  and  clear  away  the  ashes, 
this  color  flames  up  upon  you,  a  great  deal  richer  than 
anything  we  can  produce.  You  can  go  down  into  the 
narrow  vault  which  Nero  built  him  as  a  retreat  from 
the  great  heat,  and  you  will  find  the  walls  painted  all 
over  with  fanciful  designs  in  arabesque  which  have 
been  buried  beneath  the  earth  fifteen  hundred  years; 
but  when  the  peasants  light  it  up  with  their  torches, 
the  colors  flash  out  before  you  as  fresh  as  they  were  in 
the  days  of  Saint  Paul.  Your  fellow-citizen,  Mr.  Page, 
spent  twelve  years  in  Venice,  studying  Titian's  method 
of  mixing  his  colors,  and  he  thinks  he  has  got  it.  Yet 
come  down  from  Titian,  whose  colors  are  wonderfully 
and  perfectly  fresh,  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  and  although 
his  colors  are  not  yet  a  hundred  years  old,  they  are 
fading:  the  colors  on  his  lips  are  dying  out,  and  the 
cheeks  are  losing  their  tints.  He  did  not  know  how 
to  mix  well.  All  this  mastery  of  color  is  as  yet  un- 
equalled. If  you  should  go  with  that  most  delightful 
of  all  lecturers,  Professor  Tyndall,  he  would  show  you 
in  the  spectrum  the  vanishing  rays  of  violet,  and  prove 
to  you  that  beyond  their  limit  there  are  rays  still  more 
delicate,  and  to  you  invisible,  but  which  he,  by  chemi- 
cal paper,  will  make  visible  ;  and  he  will  tell  you  that 
probably,  though  you  see  three  or  four  inches  more 


378  THE   LOST    ARTS. 

• 

than  three  hundred  years  ago  your  predecessors  did, 
yet  three  hundred  years  later  our  successors  will  sur- 
pass our  limit.  The  French  have  a  theory  that  there  is 
a  certain  delicate  shade  of  blue  that  Europeans  cannot 
see.  In  one  of  his  lectures  to  his  students,  Ruskin 
opened  his  Catholic  mass-book,  and  said,  "  Gentlemen, 
we  are  the  best  chemists  in  the  world.  No  Englishman 
ever  could  doubt  that.  But  we  cannot  make  such  a 
scarlet  as  that ;  and  even  if  we  could,  it  would  not  last 
for  twenty  years.  Yet  this  is  rive  hundred  years  old  !  " 
The  Frenchman  says,  "  I  am  the  best  dyer  in  Europe ; 
nobody  can  equal  me,  and  nobody  can  surpass  Lyons." 
Yet  in  Cashmere,  where  the  girls  make  shawls  worth 
thirty  thousand  dollars,  they  will  show  him  three  hun- 
dred distinct  colors  which  he  not  only  cannot  make, 
but  cannot  even  distinguish.  When  I  was  in  Rome,  if 
a  lady  wished  to  wear  a  half-dozen  colors  at  a  masquer- 
ade, and  have  them  all  in  harmony,  she  would  go  to  the 
Jews ;  for  the  Oriental  eye  is  better  than  even  those  of 
France  or  Italy,  of  which  we  think  so  highly. 

Taking  the  metals,  the  Bible  in  its  first  chapters 
shows  that  man  first  conquered  metals  there  in  Asia ; 
and  on  that  spot  to-day  he  can  work  more  wonders  with 
those  metals  than  we  can. 

One  of  the  surprises  that  the  European  artists  re- 
ceived, when  the  English  plundered  the  summer  palace 
of  the  King  of  China,  was  the  curiously  wrought  metal 
vessels  of  every  kind,  far  exceeding  all  the  boasted  skill 
of  the  workmen  of  Europe. 

Mr.  Colton  of  the  Boston  Journal,  the  first  week 
he  landed  in  Asia,  found  that  his  chronometer  was  out 
of  order,  because  the  steel  of  the  works  had  become 
rusted.  The  London  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal 
advises  surgeons  not  to  venture  to  carry  any  lancets  to 
Calcutta,  —  to  have  them  gilded,  because  English  steel 


THE   LOST   ARTS.  379 

could  not  bear  the  atmosphere  of  India.  Yet  the 
Damascus  blades  of  the  Crusades  were  not  gilded,  and 
they  are  as  perfect  as  they  were  eight  centuries  ago. 
There  was  one  at  the  London  Exhibition,  the  point  of 
which  could  be  made  to  touch  the  hilt,  and  which  could 
be  put  into  a  scabbard  like  a  corkscrew,  and  bent  every 
way  without  breaking,  like  an  American  politician. 
Now,  the  wonder  of  this  is,  that  perfect  steel  is  a  marvel 
of  science.  If  a  London  chronometer-maker  wants  the 
best  steel  to  use  in  his  chronometer,  he  does  not  send  to 
Sheffield,  the  centre  of  all  science,  but  to  the  Punjaub, 
the  empire  of  the  seven  rivers,  where  there  is  no  science 
at  all.  The  first  needle  ever  made  in  England  was  made 
in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  and  made  by  a  negro ; 
and  when  he  died,  the  art  died  with  him.  Some  of 
the  first  travellers  in  Africa  stated  that  they  found 
a  tribe  in  the  interior  who  gave  them  better  razors 
than  they  had ;  the  irrepressible  negro  coming  up  in 
science  as  in  politics.  The  best  steel  is  the  greatest 
triumph  of  metallurgy,  and  metallurgy  is  the  glory  of 
chemistry. 

The  poets  have  celebrated  the  perfection  of  the  Orien- 
tal steel ;  and  it  is  recognized  as  the  finest  by  Moore, 
Byron,  Scott,  Southey,  and  many  others.  I  have  even 
heard  a  young  advocate  of  the  lost  arts  find  an  argu- 
ment in  Byron's  "  Sennacherib,"  from  the  fact  that  the 
mail  of  the  warriors  in  that  one  short  night  had  rusted 
before  the  trembling  Jews  stole  out  in  the  morning  to 
behold  the  terrible  work  of  the  Lord.  Scott,  in  his 
"  Tales  of  the  Crusaders,"  —  for  Sir  Walter  was  curious 
in  his  love  of  the  lost  arts,  —  describes  a  meeting  be- 
tween Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  and  Saladin.  Saladin 
asks  Richard  to  show  him  the  wonderful  strength  for 
which  he  is  famous,  and  the  Norman  monarch  responds 
by  severing  a  bar  of  iron  which  lies  on  the  floor  of  his 


380  THE   LOST   ARTS. 

tent.  Saladin  says,  u  I  cannot  do  that ; "  but  he  takes 
an  eider-down  pillow  from  the  sofa,  and  drawing  his 
keen  blade  across  it,  it  falls  in  two  pieces.  Richard 
says,  "  This  is  the  black  art ;  it  is  magic  ;  it  is  the  devil : 
you  cannot  cut  that  which  has  no  resistance ; "  and  Sala- 
din, to  show  him  that  such  is  not  the  case,  takes  a  scarf 
from  his  shoulders,  which  is  so  light  that  it  almost  floats 
in  the  air,  and  tossing  it  up,  severs  it  before  it  can 
descend.  George  Thompson  told  me  he  saw  a  man  in 
Calcutta  throw  a  handful  of  floss-silk  into  the  air,  and  a 
Hindoo  sever  it  into  pieces  with  his  sabre.  We  can 
produce  nothing  like  this. 

Taking  their  employment  of  the  mechanical  forces, 
and  their  movement  of  large  masses  from  the  earth,  we 
know  that  the  Egyptians  had  the  five,  seven,  or  three 
mechanical  powers ;  but  we  cannot  account  for  the  mul- 
tiplication and  increase  necessary  to  perform  the  won- 
ders they  accomplished. 

In  Boston,  lately,  we  have  moved  the  Pelham  Hotel, 
weighing  fifty  thousand  tons,  fourteen  feet,  and  are  very 
proud  of  it ;  and  since  then  we  have  moved  a  whole 
block  of  houses  twenty-three  feet,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
we  shall  write  a  book  about  it :  but  there  is  a  book  tell- 
ing how  Domenico  Fontana  of  the  sixteenth  century  set 
up  the  Egyptian  obelisk  at  Rome  on  end,  in  the 
Papacy  of  Sixtus  V.  Wonderful !  Yet  the  Egyptians 
quarried  that  stone,  and  carried  it  a  hundred  and  fifty 
miles,  and  the  Romans  brought  it  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
miles,  and  never  said  a  word  about  it.  Mr.  Batterson, 
of  Hartford,  walking  with  B  runnel,  the  architect  of 
the  Thames  tunnel,  in  Egypt,  asked  him  what  he  thought 
of  the  mechanical  power  of  the  Egyptians  ;  and  he  said, 
"  There  is  Pompey's  Pillar;  it  is  a  hundred  feet  high, 
and  the  capital  weighs  two  thousand  pounds.  It  is 
something  of  a  feat  to  hang  two  thousand  pounds  at 


THE   LOST    ARTS.  381 

that  height  in  the  air,  and  the  few  men  that  can  do  it 
would  better  discuss  Egyptian  mechanics." 

Take  canals.  The  Suez  Canal  absorbs  half  its  receipts 
in  cleaning  out  the  sand  which  fills  it  continually,  and 
it  is  not  yet  known  whether  it  is  a  pecuniary  success. 
The  ancients  built  a  canal  at  right  angles  to  ours  ;  be- 
cause they  knew  it  would  not  fill  up  if  built  in  that 
direction,  and  they  knew  such  an  one  as  ours  would. 
There  were  magnificent  canals  in  the  land  of  the  Jews, 
with  perfectly  arranged  gates  and  sluices.  We  have 
only  just  begun  to  understand  ventilation  properly  for 
our  houses ;  yet  late  experiments  at  the  Pyramids  in 
Egypt  show  that  those  Egyptian  tombs  were  ventilated 
in  the  most  perfect  and  scientific  manner. 

Again,  cement  is  modern,  for  the  ancients  dressed 
and  joined  their  stones  so  closely,  that  in  buildings 
thousands  of  years  old  the  thin  blade  of  a  penknife 
cannot  be  forced  between  them.  The  railroad  dates 
back  to  Egypt.  Arago  has  claimed  that  they  had  a 
knowledge  of  steam.  A  painting  has  been  discovered 
of  a  ship  full  of  machinery,  and  a  French  engineer 
said  that  the  arrangement  of  this  machinery  could  only 
be  accounted  for  by  supposing  the  motive  power  to 
have  been  steam.  Bramah  acknowledges  that  he  took 
the  idea  of  his  celebrated  lock  from  an  ancient  Egyp- 
tian pattern.  De  Tocqueville  says  there  was  no  social 
question  that  was  not  discussed  to  rags  in  Egypt. 

"Well,"  say  you,  "Franklin  invented  the  lightning- 
rod."  J  have  no  doubt  he  did  ;  but  years  before  his 
invention,  and  before  muskets  were  invented,  the  old 
soldiers  on  guard  on  the  towers  used  Franklin's  inven- 
tion to  keep  guard  with ;  and  if  a  spark  passed  between 
them  and  the  spear-head,  they  ran  and  bore  the  warn- 
ing of  the  state  and  condition  of  affairs.  After  that 
you  will  admit  that  Benjamin  Franklin  was  not  the 


382  THE   LOST   ARTS. 

only  one  that  knew  of  the  presence  of  electricity,  and 
the  advantages  derived  from  its  use.  Solomon's  Tem- 
ple, you  will  find,  was  situated  on  an  exposed  point  of 
the  hill ;  the  temple  was  so  lofty  that  it  was  often  in 
peril,  and  was  guarded  by  a  system  exactly  like  that 
of  Benjamin  Franklin. 

Well,  I  may  tell  you  a  little  of  ancient  manufactures. 
The  Duchess  of  Burgundy  took  a  necklace  from  the 
neck  of  a  mummy,  and  wore  it  to  a  ball  given  at 
the  Tuileries  ;  and  everybody  said  they  thought  it  was 
the  newest  thing  there.  A  Hindoo  princess  came  into 
court;  and  her  father,  seeing  her,  said,  "  Go  home,  you 
are  not  decently  covered,  —  go  home;"  and  she  said, 
"Father,  I  have  seven  suits  on;"  but  the  suits  were 
of  muslin,  so  thin  that  the  king  could  see  through 
them.  A  Roman  poet  says,  "  The  girl  was  in  the 
poetic  dress  of  the  country."  I  fancy  the  French 
would  be  rather  astonished  at  this.  Four  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago  the  first  spinning-machine  was  intro- 
duced into  Europe.  I  have  evidence  to  show  that  it 
made  its  appearance  two  thousand  years  before. 

Well,  I  tell  you  this  fact  to  show  that  perhaps  we 
do  not  invent  just  everything.  Why  did  I  think  to 
grope  in  the  ashes  for  this  ?  Because  all  Egypt  knew 
the  secret,  which  was  not  the  knowledge  of  the  pro- 
fessor, the  king,  and  the  priest.  Their  knowledge  won 
an  historic  privilege  which  separated  them  from  and 
brought  down  the  masses  ;  and  this  chain  was  broken 
when  Cambyses  came  down  from  Persia,  and  by  his 
genius  arid  intellect  opened  the  gates  of  knowledge, 
thundering  across  Egypt,  drawing  out  civilization  from 
royalty  and  priesthood. 

Such  was  the  system  which  was  established  in  Egypt 
of  old.  It  was  four  thousand  years  before*  humanity 
took  that  subject  to  a  proper  consideration ;  and  when 


THE   LOST   ARTS.  383 

this  consideration  was  made,  civilization  changed  her 
character.  Learning  no  longer  hid  in  a  convent,  or 
slumbered  in  the  palace.  No;  she  came  out,  joining 
hands  with  the  people,  ministering  unto  them  and  deal- 
ing with  them. 

We  have  not  an  astrology  in  the  stars,  serving  only 
the  kings  and  priests  :  we  have  an  astrology  serving 
all  those  around  us.  We  have  not  a  chemistry  hidden 
in  underground  cells,  striving  for  wealth,  striving  to 
change  everything  into  gold.  No  ;  we  have  a  chem- 
istry laboring  with  the  farmer,  and  digging  gold  out  of 
the  earth  with  the  miner.  Ah,  this  is  the  nineteenth 
century  ;  and  of  the  hundreds  of  things  we  know,  I 
can  show  you  ninety-nine  of  them  which  have  been 
anticipated  !  It  is  the  liberty  of  intellect,  and  a  diffu- 
sion of  knowledge,  that  has  caused  this  anticipation. 

When  Gibbon  finished  his  History  of  Rome,  he  said, 
"  The  hand  will  never  go  back  upon  the  dial  of  time, 
when  everything  was  hidden  in  fear  in  the  dark 
ages."  He  made  that  boast  as  he  stood  at  night  in 
the  ruins  of  the  Corsani  Palace,  looking  out  upon  the 
places  where  the  monks  were  chanting.  That  vision 
disappeared,  and  there  arose  in  its  stead  the  Temple  of 
Jupiter.  Could  he  look  back  upon  the  past,  he  would 
see  nations  that  went  up  in  their  strength,  and  down 
to  graves  with  fire  in  one  hand,  and  iron  in  the  other 
hand,  before  Rome  was  peopled,  which,  in  their  strength, 
were  crushed  in  subduing  civilization.  But  it  is  a  very 
different  principle  that  governs  this  land  ;  it  is  one 
which  should  govern  every  land  ;  it  is  one  which  this 
nation  needs  to  practise  this  day.  It  is  the  human 
property;  it  is  the  divine  will  that  any  man  has  the 
right  to  know  anything  which  he  knows  will  be  ser- 
viceable to  himself  and  to  his  fellowman,  and  that  will 
make  art  immortal  if  God  means  that  it  shall  last. 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 


On  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Daniel  O'Connell, 
August  6,  1875,  a  celebration  was  hold  in  Music  Hall,  Boston.  Mr. 
Phillips  was  the  orator  of  the  occasion.  No  subject  could  have  been 
more  congenial,  for  no  statesman  of  his  own  day  had  more  deeply 
impressed  Mr.  Phillips  than  O'Conuell,  and  the  name  of  the  Irish 
agitator  was  often  on  the  American  agitator's  lips.  The  oration  was 
often  repeated,  and  takes  rank  with  the  orator's  masterpieces. 

A  HUNDRED  years  ago  to-day  Daniel  O'Connell  was 
•±1-  born.  The  Irish  race,  wherever  scattered  over  the 
globe,  assembles  to-night  to  pay  fitting  tribute  to  his 
memory,  —  one  of  the  most  eloquent  men,  one  of  the 
most  devoted  patriots,  and  the  most  successful  states- 
man which  that  race  has  given  to  history.  We  of 
other  races  may  well  join  you  in  that  tribute,  since 
the  cause  of  constitutional  government  owes  more  to 
O'Connell  than  to  any  other  political  leader  of  the  last 
two  centuries.  The  English-speaking  race,  to  find  his 
equal  among  its  statesmen,  must  pass  by  Chatham  and 
Walpole,  and  go  back  to  Oliver  Cromwell,  or  the  able 
men  who  held  up  the  throne  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  If  to 
put  the  civil  and  social  elements  of  your  day  into  suc- 
cessful action,  and  plant  the  seeds  of  continued  strength 
and  progress  for  coming  times,  —  if  this  is  to  be  a  states- 
man, then  most  emphatically  was  O'Connell  one.  To 
exert  this  control,  and  secure  this  progress,  while  and 
because  ample  means  lie  ready  for  use  under  your  hand, 
does  not  rob  Walpole  and  Colbert,  Chatham  and  Riche- 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.  885 

lion,  of  their  title  to  be  considered  statesmen.  To  do 
it,  as  Martin  Luther  did,  when  one  must  ingeniously 
discover  or  invent  his  tools,  and  while  the  mightiest 
forces  that  influence  human  affairs  are  arrayed  against 
him,  that  is  what  ranks  O'Connell  with  the  few  mas- 
terly statesmen  the  English-speaking  race  has  ever  had. 
When  Napoleon's  soldiers  bore  the  negro  chief  Tous- 
saint  LTOuverture  into  exile,  he  said,  pointing  back  to 
San  Domingo,  "  You  think  you  have  rooted  up  the  tree 
of  liberty,  but  I  am  only  a  branch.  I  have  planted  the 
tree  itself  so  deep  that  ages  will  never  root  it  up."  And 
whatever  may  be  said  of  the  social  or  industrial  condi- 
tion of  Hayti  during  the  last  seventy  years,  its  nation- 
ality has  never  been  successfully  assailed. 

O'Connell  is  the  only  Irishman  who  can  say  as  much 
of  Ireland.  From  the  peace  of  Utrecht,  1713,  till  the 
fall  of  Napoleon,  Great  Britain  was  the  leading  State  in 
Europe;  while  Ireland,  a  comparatively  insignificant 
island,  lay  at  its  feet.  She  weighed  next  to  nothing  in 
the  scale  of  British  politics.  The  Continent  pitied,  and 
England  despised  her.  O'Connell  found  her  a  mass  of 
quarrelling  races  and  sects,  divided,  dispirited,  broken- 
hearted, and  servile.  He  made  her  a  nation  whose  first 
word  broke  in  pieces  the  iron  obstinacy  of  Wellington, 
tossed  Peel  from  the  cabinet,  and  gave  the  government 
to  the  Whigs ;  whose  colossal  figure,  like  the  helmet  in 
Wai  pole's  romance,  has  filled  the  political  sky  ever 
since  ;  whose  generous  aid  thrown  into  the  scale  of  the 
three  great  British  reforms, —  the  ballot,  the  corn-laws, 
and  slavery,  —  secured  their  success  ;  a  nation  whose 
continual  discontent  has  dragged  Great  Britain  down  to 
be  a  second-rate  power  on  the  chess-board  of  Europe.  I 
know  other  causes  have  helped  in  producing  this  result, 
but  the  nationality  which  O'Connell  created  has  been 
the  main  cause  of  this  change  in  England's  importance. 

25 


386  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

Dean  Swift,  Molyneux,  and  Henry  Flood  thrust  Ireland 
for  a  moment  into  the  arena  of  British  polities,  a  sturdy 
suppliant  clamoring  for  justice ;  and  Grattan  held  her 
there  an  equal,  and,  as  he  thought,  a  nation,  for  a  few 
years.  But  the  unscrupulous  hand  of  William  Pitt 
brushed  away  in  an  hour  all  Grattan's  work£.  Well 
might  he  say  of  the  Irish  Parliament  which  he  brought 
to  life,  "  I  sat  by  its  cradle,  I  followed  its  hearse  ;"  since 
after  that  infamous  union,  which  Byron  called  a  "  union 
of  the  shark  with  its  prey,"  Ireland  sank  back,  plun- 
dered and  helpless.  O'Connell  lifted  her  to  a  fixed  and 
permanent  place  in  English  affairs,  —  no  suppliant,  but 
a  conqueror  dictating  her  terms. 

This  is  the  proper  standpoint  from  which  to  look  at 
O'Connell's  work.  This  is  the  consideration  that  ranks 
him,  not  with  founders  of  States,  like  Alexander,  Caesar, 
Bismarck,  Napoleon,  and  William  the  Silent,  but  with 
men  who,  without  arms,  by  force  of  reason,  have  revo- 
lutionized their  times,  —  with  Luther,  Jefferson,  Maz- 
zini,  Samuel  Adams,  Garrison,  and  Franklin.  I  know 
some  men  will  sneer  at  this  claim,  —  those  who  have 
never  looked  at  him  except  through  the  spectacles  of 
English  critics,  who  despised  him  as  an  Irishman  and  a 
Catholic,  until  they  came  to  hate  him  as  a  conqueror. 
As  Grattan  said  of  Kirwan,  "The  curse  of  Swift  was 
upon  him,  to  have  been  born  an  Irishman  and  a  man  of 
genius,  and  to  have  used  his  gifts  for  his  country's 
good."  Mark  what  measure  of  success  attended  the 
able  men  who  preceded  him,  in  circumstances  as  favor- 
able as  his,  perhaps  even  better ;  then  measure  him  by 
comparison. 

An  island  soaked  with  the  blood  of  countless  rebel- 
lions ;  oppression  such  as  would  turn  cowards  into 
heroes ;  a  race  whose  disciplined  valor  had  been  proved 
on  almost  every  battlefield  in  Europe,  and  whose  reck- 


DANIEL    O'CONNELL.  387 

less  daring  lifted  it,  any  time,  in  arms  against  England, 
with  hope  or  without,  —  what  inspired  them  ?  Devotion, 
eloquence,  and  patriotism  seldom  paralleled  in  history. 
Who  led  them?  Dean  Sivift,  according  to  Addison, 
"  the  greatest  genius  of  his  age,"  called  by  Pope  "  the 
incomparable,"  a  man  fertile  in  resources,  of  stubborn 
courage  and  tireless  energy,  master  of  an  English  style 
unequalled,  perhaps,  for  its  purpose  then  or  since,  a  man 
who  had  twice  faced  England  in  her  angriest  mood,  and 
by  that  masterly  pen  subdued  her  to  his  will ;  Henry 
Flood,  eloquent  even  for  an  Irishman,  and  sagacious  as 
he  was  eloquent,  —  the  eclipse  of  that  brilliant  life  one  of 
the  saddest  pictures  in  Irish  biography  ;  G-rattan,  with 
all  the  courage,  and  more  than  the  eloquence,  of  his 
race,  a  statesman's  eye  quick  to  see  every  advantage, 
boundless  devotion,  unspotted  integrity,  recognized  as 
an  equal  by  the  world's  leaders,  and  welcomed  by  Fox 
to  the  House  of  Commons  as  the  "  Demosthenes  of 
Ireland  ; "  Emmet  in  the  field,  Sheridan  in  the  senate, 
Cur  ran  at  the  bar  ;  and,  above  all,  Edmund  Burke, 

I  whose  name  makes  eulogy  superfluous,  more  than 
Cicero  in  the  senate,  almost  Plato  in  the  academy.  All 

/•  these  gave  their  lives  to  Ireland  ;  and  when  the  present 
century  opened,  where  was  she  ?  Sold  like  a  slave  in 
the  market-place  by  her  perjured  master,  William  Pitt. 
It  was  then  that  O'Connell  flung  himself  into  the 
struggle,  gave  fifty  years  to  the  service  of  his  country ; 
and  where  is  she  to-day  ?  Not  only  redeemed,  but  her 
independence  put  beyond  doubt  or  peril.  Grattan  and 
his  predecessors  could  get  no  guaranties  for  what  rights 
they  gained.  In  that  sagacious,  watchful,  and  almost 

;  omnipotent  public  opinion,  which  O'Connell  created,  is 
an  all-sufficient  guaranty  of  Ireland's  future.  Look  at 
her !  almost  every  shackle  has  fallen  from  her  limbs ; 
all  that  human  wisdom  has  as  yet  devised  to  remedy  the 


388  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

evils  of  bigotry  and  misrule  has  been  done.  O'Connell 
found  Ireland  a  "  hissing  and  a  byword  "  in  Edinburgh 
and  London.  He  made  her  the  pivot  of  British  politics  ; 
she  rules  them,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  as  absolute  a 
sway  as  the  slave  question  did  the  United  States  from 
1850  to  1865.  Look  into  Earl  Russell's  book,  and  the 
history  of  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832,  and  see  with  how 
j  much  truth  it  may  be  claimed  that  O'Connell  and  his 
\  fellows  gave  Englishmen  the  ballot  under  that  act.  It 
is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  corn-laws  could  have 
been  abolished  without  their  aid.  In  the  Antislavery 
struggle  O'Connell  stands,  in  influence  and  ability,  equal 
with  the  best.  I  know  the  credit  all  those  measures  do 
to  English  leaders;  but,  in  my  opinion,  the  next  genera- 
tion will  test  the  statesmanship  of  Peel,  Palmerston, 
Russell,  and  Gladstone,  almost  entirely  by  their  conduct 
of  the  Irish  question.  All  the  laurels  they  have  hitherto 
won  in  that  field  are  rooted  in  ideas  which  Grattan  and 
O'Connell  urged  on  reluctant  hearers  for  half  a  cen- 
tury. Why  do  Bismarck  and  Alexander  look  with  such 
contemptuous  indifference  on  every  attempt  of  England 
to  mingle  in  European  affairs  ?  Because  they  know 
they  have  but  to  lift  a  finger,  and  Ireland  stabs  her  in 
the  back.  Where  was  the  statesmanship  of  English 
leaders  when  they  allowed  such  an  evil  to  grow  so  for- 
midable ?  This  is  Ireland  to-day.  What  was  she  when 
O'Connell  undertook  her  cause  ?  The  saddest  of  Irish 
poets  has  described  her :  — 

"  O  Ireland,  my  country,  the  hour  of  thy  pride  and  thy  splendor  hath 


And  the  chain  that  was  spurned  in  thy  moments  of  power  hangs  heavy 

around  thee  at  last ! 
There  are  marks  in  the  fate  of  each  clime,  there  are  turns  in  the  fortunes 

of  men ; 
But  the  changes  of  realms  or  the  chances  of  time  shall  never  restore 

thee  again. 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.  389 

"  Thou  art  chained  to  the  wheel  of  the  foe  by  links  which  a  world  cannot 

sever : 
With  thy  tyrant  through  storm  and  through  calm  thou  shaft  go,  and 

thy  sentence  is  bondage  forever. 
Thou  art  doomed  for  the  thankless  to  toil,  thou  art  left  for  the  proud 

to  disdain: 
And  the  blood  of  thy  sons  and  the  wealth  of  thy  soil  shall  be  lavished 

and  lavished  in  vain 

"  Thy  riches  with  taunts   shall   be   taken,  thy  valor  with  coldness  be 

paid; 
And  of  millions  who  see  thee  thus  sunk  and  forsaken  not  one   shall 

jta«vt  forth  in  thine  aid. 
In  the  nations  thy  place  is  left  void ;   thou  art  lost  in  the  list  of  the 

free; 

Even  realms  by  the  plague  and  the  earthquake  destroyed  may  revive, 
but  no  hope  is  for  thee." 

It  was  at  this  moment,  when  the  cloud  came  down 
close  to  earth",  that  O'Connell,  then  a  young  lawyer  just 
admitted  to  the  bar,  flung  himself  in  front  of  his  coun- 
trymen, and  begged  them  to  make  one  grand  effort.  The 
hierarchy  of  the  Church  disowned  him.  They  said, 
"  We  have  seen  every  attempt  lead  always  up  to  the 
scaffold  ;  we  are  not  willing  to  risk  another  effort."  The 
peerage  of  the  Island  repudiated  him.  They  said,  "  We 
have  struggled  and  bled  for  a  half-dozen  centuries  ;  it  is 
better  to  sit  down  content."  Alone,  a  young  man,  with- 
out office,  without  wealth,  without  renown,  he  flung  him- 
self in  front  of  the  people,  and  asked  for  a  new  effort. 
What  was  the  power  left  him  ?  Simply  the  people,  — 
poverty-stricken,  broken-hearted  peasants,  standing  $n 
a  soil  soaked  with  the  blood  of  their  ancestors,  cowering 
under  a  code  of  which  Brougham  said  that  "  they  could 
not  lift  their  hands  without  breaking  it."  It  was  a  com- 
munity impoverished  by  five  centuries  of  oppression, — 
four  millions  of  Catholics  robbed  of  every  acre  of  their 
native  land  ;  it  was  an  island  torn  by  race-hatred  and 
religious  bigotry,  her  priests  indifferent,  and  her  nobles 


390  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

hopeless  or  traitors.  The  wiliest  of  her  enemies,  a  Prot- 
estant Irishman,  ruled  the  British  senate ;  the  sternest 
of  her  tyrants,  a  Protestant  Irishman,  led  the  armies  of 
Europe.  Puritan  hate,  which  liad  grown  blinder  and 
more  bitter  since  the  days  of  Cromwell,  gave  them 
weapons.  Ireland  herself  lay  bound  in  the  iron  links 
of  a  code  which  Montesquieu  said  could  have  been  u  made 
only  by  devils,  and  should  be  registered  only  in  hell." 
Her  millions  were  beyond  the  reach  of  the  great  reform 
engine  of  modern  times,  since  they  could  neither  read 
nor  write. 

Well,  in  order  to  lead  Ireland  in  that  day  an  Irishman 
must  have  four  elements,  and  he  must  have  them  also  to 
a  large  extent  to-day.  The  first  is,  he  must  be  what  an 
Irishman  calls  a  gentleman,  every  inch  of  him,  from  the 
crown  of  his  head  to  the  sole  of  his  foot,  —  that  is,  he 
must  trace  his  lineage  back  to  the  legends  of  Ireland. 
Well,  O'Connell  could  do  that ;  he  belonged  to  one  of 
the  perhaps  seven  royal  families  of  the  old  history. 
Secondly,  he  must  have  proved  his  physical  courage  in 
the  field  or  by  the  duel.  Well,  O'Connell  knew  this  ; 
his  enemies  knew  it.  Bred  at  St.  Omer,  with  a  large 
leaning  to  be  a  priest,  he  had  the  most  emphatic  scruples 
against  the  duel,  and  so  announced  himself  ;  so  that 
when  he  had  got  his  head  above  the  mass  and  began  to 
be  seen,  a  Major  d'Esterre,  agent  of  the  Dublin  Corpora- 
tion, visited  him  with  continuous  insult.  Every  word 
that  had  insult  in  it  was  poured  upon  his  head  through 
the  journals.  O'Connell  saw  the  dread  alternative,  —  he 
must  either  give  satisfaction  to  the  gentleman  or  leave 
the  field ;  and  at  last  he  consented  to  a  challenge.  He 
passed  the  interval  between  the  challenge  and  the  day  of 
meeting  in  efforts  to  avoid  it,  which  were  all  attributed 
to  cowardice.  When  at  last  he  stood  opposite  his  an- 
tagonist, he  said  to  his  second,  "  God  forbid  that  1 


DANIEL    O'CONNELL.  391 

should  risk  a  life;  mark  mo,  I  shall  fire  below  the 
knee."  But  you  know  in  early  praetice  with  the  pistol 
you  always  fire  above  the  mark  ;  and  O'Coimcll's  pistol 
took  effect  above  the  knee,  and  D'Esterre  fell  mortally 
wounded.  O'Connell  recorded  in  the  face  of  Europe  a 
vow  against  further  duelling.  He  settled  a  pension  on 
the  widow  of  his  antagonist ;  and  a  dozen  years  later, 
when  he  held  ten  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  briefs  in  the 
northern  courts,  he  flung  them  away,  and  went  to  the 
extreme  south  to  save  for  her  the  last  acre  she  owned. 
After  this  his  sons  fought  his  duels ;  and  when  Disraeli, 
anxious  to  prove  himself  a  courageous  man,  challenged 
O'Connell,  he  put  the  challenge  in  his  pocket.  Disraeli, 
to  get  the  full  advantage  of  the  matter,  sent  his  letter 
to  the  London  Times;  whereupon  Maurice  O'Connell 
sent  the  Jew  a  message  that  there  was  an  O'Connell 
who  would  fight  the  duel  if  he  wanted  it,  but  his 
name  was  not  Daniel.  Disraeli  did  not  continue  the 
correspondence. 

Thirdly,  an  Irish  leader  must  not  only  be  a  lawyer  of 
great  acuteness,  but  he  must  have  a  great  reputation  for 
being  such.  He  had  to  lift  three  millions  of  people,  and 
fling  them  against  a  government  that  held  in  its  hand  a 
code  which  made  it  illegal  for  any  one  of  them  to  move ; 
and  they  never  had  moved  prior  to  this  that  it  did  not 
end  at  the  scaffold.  For  twenty  long  years  O'Connell 
lifted  these  three  millions  of  men,  and  flung  them 
against  the  British  government  at  every  critical  moment, 
and  no  sheriff  ever  put  his  hand  on  one  of  his  followers; 
and  when  late  in"  life  the  Queen's  Bench  of  Judges,  sit- 
ting in  Dublin,  sent  him  to  jail,  he  stood  almost  alone  in 
his  interpretation  of  the  statutes  against  the  legal  talent 
of  the  Island.  He  appealed  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and 
the  judges  of  England  confirmed  his  construction  of  the 
law,  and  set  him  free.  Fourthly,  an  Irish  leader  must 


392  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

be  an  orator  ;  lie  must  have  the  magic  that  moulds  mil- 
lions of  souls  into  one.  Of  this  I  shall  have  more  to  say 
in  a  moment. 

In  this  mass  of  Irish  ignorance,  weakness,  and  quar- 
rel, one  keen  eye  saw  hidden  the  elements  of  union 
and  strength.  With  rarest  skill  he  called  them  forth, 
and  marshalled  them  into  rank.  Then  this  oiie  man, 
without  birth,  wealth,  or  office,  in  a  land  ruled  by  birth, 
wealth,  and  office,  moulded  from  those  unsuspected  ele- 
ments a  power  which,  overawing  king,  senate,  and  peo- 
ple, wrote  his  single  will  on  the  statute-book  of  the  most 
obstinate  nation  in  Europe.  Safely  to  emancipate  the 
Irish  Catholics,  and  in  spite  of  Saxon-Protestant  hate, 
to  lift  all  Ireland  to  the  level  of  British  citizenship,— 
this  was  the  problem  which  statesmanship  and  patriot- 
ism had  been  seeking  for  two  centuries  to  solve.  For 
this,  blood  had  been  poured  out  like  water.  •  On  this, 
the  genius  of  Swift,  the  learning  of  Molyneux,  and  the 
eloquence  of  Bushe,  Grattan,  and  Burke,  had  been 
wasted.  English  leaders  ever  since  Fox  had  studied 
this  problem  anxiously.  They  saw  that  the  safety  of 
the  empire  was  compromised.  At  one  or  two  critical 
moments  in  the  reign  of  George  III.,  one  signal  from  an 
Irish  leader  would  have  snapped  the  chain  that  bound 
Ireland  to  his  throne.  His  ministers  recognized  it ; 
and  they  tried  every  expedient,  exhausted  every  device, 
dared  every  peril,  kept  oaths  or  broke  them,  in  order  to 
succeed.  All  failed ;  and  not  only  failed,  but  acknowl- 
edged they  could  see  no  way  in  which  success  could 
ever  be  achieved. 

O'Connell  achieved  it.  Out  of  this  darkness,  he  called 
forth  light.  Out  of  this  most  abject,  weak,  and  pitiable 
of  kingdoms,  he  made  a  power;  and  dying,  he  left  in 
Parliament  a  spectre,  which,  unless  appeased,  pushes 
Whig  and  Tory  ministers  alike  from  their  stools. 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.  393 

But  Brougham  says  he  was  a  demagogue.  Fie  on 
Wellington,  Derby,  Peel,  Palmerston,  Liverpool,  Russell, 
and  Brougham,  to  be  fooled  and  ruled  by  a  demagogue ! 
What  must  they,  the  subjects,  be,  if  O'Connell,  their 
king,  be  only  a  bigot  and  a  demagogue  ?  A  demagogue  ' 
rides  the  storm ;  he  has  never  really  the  ability  to  create 
one.  He  uses  it  narrowly,  ignorantly,  and  for  selfish 
ends.  If  not  crushed  by  the  force  which,  without  his 
will,  has  flung  him  into  power,  he  leads  it  with  ridicu- 
lous miscalculation  against  some  insurmountable  ob- 
stacle that  scatters  it  forever.  Dying,  he  leaves  no 
mark  on  the  elements  with  which  he  has  been  mixed. 
Robespierre  will  serve  for  an  illustration.  It  took 
O'Connell  thirty  years  of  patient  and  sagacious  labor  to 
mould  elements  whose  existence  no  man,  however  wise, 
had  ever  discerned  before.  He  used  them  unselfishly, 
only  to  break  the  yoke  of  his  race.  Nearly  fifty  years 
have  passed  since  his  triumph,  but  his  impress  still 
stands  forth  clear  and  sharp  on  the  empire's  policy. 
Ireland  is  wholly  indebted  to  him  for  her  political  educa- 
tion. Responsibility  educates ;  he  lifted  her  to  broader 
responsibilities.  Her  possession  of  power  makes  it  the 
keen  interest  of  other  classes  to  see  she  is  well  informed. 
He  associated  her  with  all  the  reform  movements  of 
GreaUBritain.  This  is  the  education  of  affairs,  broader, 
deeper,  and  more  real  than  what  school  or  college  can 
give.  This  and  power,  his  gifts,  are  the  lever  which 
lifts  her  to  every  other  right  and  privilege.  How  much 
England  owes  him  we  can  never  know;  since  how  great 
a  danger  and  curse  Ireland  would  have  been  to  the  em- 
pire had  she  continued  the  cancer  Pitt  and  Castlereagh 
left  her  is  a  chapter  of  history  which,  fortunately,  can 
never  be  written.  No  demagogue  ever  walked  through 
the  streets  of  Dublin,  as  O'Connell  and  G rattan  did  more 
than  once,  hooted  and  mobbed  because  they  opposed 


894  DANIEL    O'CONNELL. 

themselves  to  the  mad  purpose  of  the  people,  and 
crushed  it  hy  a  stern  resistance.  No  demagogue  would 
have  offered  himself  to  a  race  like  the  Irish  as  the 
apostle  of  peace,  pledging  himself  to  the  British  govern- 
ment, that,  in.  the  long  agitation  before  him,  with  brave 
millions  behind  him  spoiling  for  a  fight,  he  would  never 
draw  a  sword. 

I  have  purposely  dwelt  long  on  this  view,  because  the 
extent  and  the  far-reaching  effects  of  O'Connell's  work, 
without  regard  to  the  motives  which  inspired  him,  or 
the  methods  he  used,  have  never  been  fully  recognized. 

Briefly  stated,  he  did  what  the  ablest  and  bravest  of 
his  forerunners  had  tried  to  do  and  failed.  He  created 
a  public  opinion,  and  unity  of  purpose,  —  no  matter  what 
be  now  the  dispute  about  methods,  —  which  made  Ire- 
land a  nation;  he  gave  her  British  citizenship,  and  a 
place  in  the  imperial  Parliament ;  he  gave  her  a  press 
and  a  public:  with  these  tools  her  destiny  is  in  her  own 
hands.  When  the  Abolitionists  got  for  the  negro  schools 
and  the  vote,  they  settled  the  slave  question ;  for  they 
planted  the  sure  seeds  of  civil  equality.  O'Connell  did 
this  for  Ireland,  —  this  which  no  Irishman  before  had 
ever  dreamed  of  attempting.  Swift  and  Molyneux 
were  able.  Grattan,  Bushe,  Saurin,  Burrowes,  Plunket, 
Curran,  Burke,  were  eloquent.  Throughout  the  Jsland 
courage  was  a  drug.  They  gained  now  one  point,  and 
now  another ;  but,  after  all,  they  left  the  helm  of  Ire- 
land's destiny  in  foreign  and  hostile  hands.  O'Connell 
was  brave,  sagacious,  eloquent;  but,  more  than  all,  he 
was  a  statesman,  for  he  gave  to  Ireland's  own  keeping 
the  key  of  her  future.  As  Lord  Bacon  marches  down 
the  centuries,  he  may  lay  one  hand  on  the  telegraph, 
and  the  other  on  the  steam-engine,  and  say,  "  These  are 
mine,  for  I  taught  you  how  to  study  Nature."  In  a 
similar  sense,  as  shackle  after  shackle  falls  from  Irish 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.  395 

limbs,  O'Connell  may  say,  "  This  victory  is  mine  ;  for  I 
taught  you  the  method,  and  I  gave  you  the  arms." 

I  have  hitherto  been  speaking  of  his  ability  and  suc- 
cess ;  by  and  by  we  will  look  at  his  character,  motives, 
and  methods.  This  unique  ability  even  his  enemies 
have  been  forced  to  confess.  Harriet  Martineau,  in  her 
incomparable  history  of  the  "  Thirty  Years'  Peace,"  has, 
with  Tory  hate,  misconstrued  every  action  of  O'Connell, 
aiid  invented  a  bad  motive  for  each  one.  But  even  she 
confesses  that  "  he  rose  in  power,  influence,  and  noto- 
riety to  an  eminence  such  as  no  other  individual  citizen 
has  attained  in  modern  times  "  in  Great  Britain.  And 
one  of  his  by  110  means  partial  biographers  has  well 
said,  — 

"  Any  man  who  turns  over  the  magazines  and  newspapers 
of  that  period  will  easily  perceive  how  grandly  O'Connell's 
figure  dominated  in  politics,  how  completely  he  had  dispelled 
the  indifference  that  had  so  long  prevailed  on  Irish  questions, 
how  clearly  his  agitation  stands  forth  as  the  great  fact  of 
the  time.  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  his  position,  so  far  from  being 
a  common  one,  is  absolutely  unique  in  history.  We  may 
search  in  vain  through  the  records  of  the  past  for  an}'  man, 
who  without  the  effusion  of  a  drop  of  blood,  or  the  advan- 
tages of  office  or  rank,  succeeded  in  governing  a  people 
so  absolutely  and  so  long,  and  in  creating  so  entirely  the 
elements  of  his  power.  .  .  .  There  was  no  rival  to  his 
supremacy,  there  was  no  restriction  to  his  authority.  He 
played  with  the  enthusiasm  he  had  aroused,  with  the  neg- 
ligent ease  of  a  master ;  he  governed  the  complicated  organ- 
ization he  had  created,  with  a  sagacity  that  never  failed. 
He  made  himself  the  focus  of  the  attention  of  other  lands, 
and  the  centre  around  which  the  rising  intellect  of  his  own 
revolved.  He  had  transformed  the  whole  social  system  of 
Ireland  ;  almost  reversed  the  relative  positions  of  Protestants 
and  Catholics ;  remodelled  by  his  influence  the  representa- 
tive, ecclesiastical,  and  educational  institutions,  and  created 


396  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

a  public  opinion  that  surpassed  the  wildest  dreams  of  his 
predecessors.  Can  we  wonder  at  the  proud  exultation  with 
which  he  exclaimed,  '  G rattan  sat  by  the  cradle  of  his 
countiy,  and  followed  her  hearse  ;  it  was  left  for  me  to 
sound  the  resurrection  trumpet,  and  to  show  that  she  was 
not  dead,  but  sleeping'?" 

But  the  method  by  which  he  achieved  his  success  is 
perhaps  more  remarkable  than  even  the  success  itself. 
An  Irish  poet,  one  of  his  bitterest  assailants  thirty  years 
ago,  has  laid  a  chaplet  of  atonement  on  his  altar,  and 
one  verse  runs,  — 

"  0  great  world-leader  of  a  mighty  age  ! 
Praise  unto  thee  let  all  the  people  give. 
By  thy  great  name  of  LIBERATOR  live 
In  golden  letters  upon  history's  page; 
And  this  thy  epitaph  while  time  shall  be,  — 
He  found  his  country  chained,  but  left  her  free."  ' 

It  is  natural  that  Ireland  should  remember  him  as  her 
Liberator.  But,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  you,  I  think 
Europe  and  America  will  remember  him  by  a  higher 
title.  I  said  in  opening,  that  the  cause  of  constitutional 
government  is  more  indebted  to  O'Connell  than  to  any 
other  political  leader  of  the  last  two  centuries.  What  I 
mean  is,  that  he  invented  the  great  method  of  constitu- 
tional agitation.  Agitator  is  a  title  which  will  last 
longer,  which  suggests  a  broader  and  more  permanent 
influence,  and  entitles  him  to  the  gratitude  of  far  more 
millions,  than  the  name  Ireland  loves  to  give  him.  The 
"  fi rst  great  agitator  "  is  his  proudest  title  to  gratitude 
and  fame.  Agitation  is  the  method  that  puts  the  school 
by  the  side  of  the  ballot-box.  The  Fremont  canvass  was 
the  nation's  best  school.  Agitation  prevents  rebellion, 
keeps  the  peace,  and  secures  progress.  Every  step  she 
gains  is  gained  forever.  Muskets  are  the  weapons  of 
animals ;  agitation  is  the  atmosphere  of  brains.  The 


DANIEL   6'CONNELL.  397 

old  Hindoo  saw,  in  his  dream,  the  human  race  led  out 
to  its  various  fortunes.  First,  men  were  in  chains  which 
went  back  to  an  iron  hand  ;  then  he  saw  them  led  by 
threads  from  the  brain  which  went  upward  to  an  un- 
seen hand.  The  first  was  despotism,  iron,  and  ruling 
by  force.  The  last  was  civilization,  ruling  by  ideas. 

Agitation  is  an  old  word  with  a  new  meaning.  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  the  first  English  leader  who  felt  he  was 
its  tool,  defined  it  to  be  "  the  marshalling  of  the  con- 
science of  a  nation  to  mould  its  laws."  O'Connell  was 
the  first  to  show  and  use  its  power,  to  lay  down  its 
principles,  to  analyze  its  elements,  and  mark  out  its 
metes  and  bounds.  It  is  voluntary,  public,  and  above- 
board, —  no  oath-bound  secret  societies  like  those  of 
old  time  in  Ireland,  and  of  the  Continent  to-day.  Its 
means  are  reason  and  argument,  —  no  appeal  to  arms. 
Wait  patiently  for  the  slow  growth  of  public  opinion. 

The  Frenchman  is  angry  with  his  government ;  he 
throws  up  barricades,  and  shots  his  guns  to  the  lips. 
A  week's  fury  drags  the  nation  ahead  a  hand-breadth  ; 
reaction  lets  it  settle  half-way  back  again.  As  Lord 
Chesterfield  said,  a  hundred  years  ago,  "  You  French- 
men erect  barricades,  but  never  any  barriers."  An 
Englishman  is  dissatisfied  with  public  affairs.  He 
brings  his  charges,  offers  his  proofs,  waits  for  prejudice 
to  relax,  for  public  opinion  to  inform  itself.  Then 
every  step  taken  is  taken  forever ;  an  abuse  once  re- 
moved never  reappears  in  history.  Where  did  he  learn 
this  method  ?  Practically  speaking,  from  O'Connell. 
It  was  he  who  planted  its  corner-stone,  —  argument,  no 
violence  ;  no  political  change  is  worth  a  drop  of  human 
1)1><><L  His  other  motto  was,  u  Tell  the  whole  truth;" 
no  concealing  half  of  one's  convictions  to  make  the 
other  half  more  acceptable  ;  no  denial  of  one  truth  to 
gain  hearing  for  another ;  no  compromise  ;  or,  as  he 


. 


398  DANIEL    O'CONNELL. 

phrased  it,  u  Nothing  is  politically  right  which  is  morally 
wrong." 

Above  all,  plant  yourself  on  the  millions.  The  sym- 
pathy of  every  human  being,  no  matter  how  ignorant 
or  how  humble,  adds  weight  to  public  opinion.  At  the 
outset  of  his  career  the  clergy  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  his 
appeal.  They  had  seen  their  flocks  led  up  to  useless 
slaughter  for  centuries,  and  counselled  submission.  The 
nobility  repudiated  him;  they  were  either  traitors  or 
hopeless.  Protestants  had  touched  their  Ultima  Thule 
with  Grattan,  and  seemed  settling  down  in  despair. 
English  Catholics  advised  waiting  till  the  tyrant  grew 
merciful.  O'Connell,  left  alone,  said,  "  I  will  forge  these 
four  millions  of  Irish  hearts  into  a  thunderbolt  which 
shall  suffice  to  dash  this  despotism  to  pieces."  And  he 
did  it.  Living  under  an  aristocratic  government,  him- 
self of  the  higher  class,  he  anticipated  Lincoln's  wisdom, 
and  framed  his  movements  "  for  the  people,  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  by  the  people." 

It  is  a  singular  fact,  that  the  freer  a  nation  becomes, 
the  more  utterly  democratic  the  form  of  its  institutions, 
this  outside  agitation,  this  pressure  of  public  opinion  to 
direct  political  action,  becomes  more  and  more  necessary. 
The  general  judgment  is,  that  the  freest  possible  govern- 
ment produces  the  freest  possible  men  and  women,  — 
the  most  individual,  the  least  servile  to  the  judgment  of 
others.  But  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  any  man 
that  this  is  an  unreasonable  expectation,  and  that,  on  the 
/contrary,  entire  equality  and  freedom  in  political  Jorms 
almost  inevitably  tend  to  make  the  individual  subside 
into  the  mass,  and  lose  his  identity  in  the  general  whole. 
Suppose  we  stood  in  England  to-night.  There  is  the 
nobility,  and  here  is  the  Church.  There  is  the  trading- 
class,  and  here  is  the  literary.  A  broad  gulf  separates  the 
four  ;  and  provided  a  member  of  either  can  conciliate 


DANIEL    O'CONNELL.  399 

his  own  section,  he  can  afford,  in  a  very  large  measure, 
to  despise  the  judgment  of  the  other  three.  He  has,  to 
some  extent,  a  refuge  and  a  breakwater  against  the 
tyranny  of  what  we  call  public  opinion.  But  in  a  coun- 
try like  ours,  of  absolute  democratic  equality,  public 
opinion  is  not  only  omnipotent,  it  is  omnipresent.  There 
is  no  refuge  from  its  tyranny  ;  there  is  no  hiding  from  its 
reach  ;  and  the  result  is,  that  if  you  take  the  old  Greek 
lantern,  and  go  about  to  seek  among  a  hundred1_yjou 
will  find  not  one  single  American  who  really  has  not,  or 
who  does  not  fancy  at  least  that  he  has,  something  to 
gain  or  lose  in  his  ambition,  his  social  life,  or  his  busi- 
ness, from  the  good  opinion  and  the  votes  of  those  about 
him.  And  the  consequence  is,  that, — 'instead  of  being  a 
mass  of  individuals,  each  one  fearlessly  blurting  out  his 
own  convictions,  —  as  a  nation,  compared  with  other 
nations,  we  are  a  mass  of  cowards.  More  than  any  other 
people,  we  are  afraid  of  each  other. 

If  you  were  a  caucus  to-night,  Democratic  or  Republi- 
can, and  I  were  your  orator,  none  of  you  could  get 
beyond  the  necessary  and  timid  limitations  of  party. 
You  not  only  would  not  demand,  you  would  not  allow 
me  to  utter,  one  word  of  what  you  really  thought,  and 
what  I  thought.  You  would  demand  of  me  —  and  my 
value  as  a  caucus  speaker  would  depend  entirely  on  the 
adroitness  and  the  vigilance  with  which  I  met  the  de- 
mand —  that  I  should  not  utter  one  single  word  which 
would^  compromise  the  vote  of  next  week.  That  is 
politics  ;  so  with  the  press.  Seemingly  independent, 
and  sometimes  really  so,  the  press  can  afford  only  to 
mount  the  cresting  wave,  not  go  beyond  it.  The  editor 
might  as  well  shoot  his  reader  with  a  bullet  as  with  a 
new  idea.  He  must  hit  the  exact  line  of  the  opinion  of 
the  day.  I  am  not  finding  fault  with  him  ;  I  am  only 
describing  him.  Some  three  years  ago  I  took  to  one  of 


400  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

the  freest  of  the  Boston  journals  a  letter,  and  by  appro- 
priate consideration  induced  its  editor  to  print  it.  And 
as  we  glanced  along  its  contents,  and  came  to  the  con- 
cluding statement,  he  said,  "  Could  n't  you  omit  that  ?  " 
I  said,  "  No ;  I  wrote  it  for  that ;  it  is  the  gist  of  the 
statement."  "  Well,"  said  he,  "  it  is  true  ;  there  is  not 
a  boy  in  the  streets  that  does  not  know  it  is  true  ;  but  I 
wish  you  could  omit  it." 

I  insisted  ;  and  the  next  morning,  fairly  and  justly, 
he  printed  the  whole.  Side  by  side  he  put  an  article 
of  his  own,  in  which  he  said,  "  We  copy  in  the  next 
column  an  article  from  Mr.  Phillips,  and  we  only  regret 
"the  absurd  and  unfounded  statement  with  which  he 
concludes  it."  He  had  kept  his  promise  by  printing 
the  article ;  he  saved  his  reputation  by  printing  the 
comment.  And  that,  again,  is  the  inevitable;  the  essen- 
tial limitation  of  the  press  in  a  republican  community. 
Our  institutions,  floating  unanchored  on  the  shifting 
surface  of  popular  opinion,  cannot  afford  to  hold  back, 
or  to  draw  forward,  a  hated  question,  and  compel  a  re- 
luctant public  to  look  at  it  and  to  consider  it.  Hence, 
as  you  see  at  once,  the  moment  a  large  issue,  twenty 
years  ahead  of  its  age,  presents  itself  to  the  considera- 
tion of  an  empire  or  of  a  republic,  just  in  proportion  to 
the  freedom  of  its  institutions  is  the  necessity  of  a  plat- 
form outside  of  the  press,  of  politics,  and  of  its  church, 
wheron  stand  men  with  no  candidate  to  elect,  with  no 
plan  to  carry,  with  no  reputation  to  stake,  with  no 
object  but  the  truth,  no  purpose  but  to  tear  the  ques- 
tion open  and  let  the  light  through  it.  So  much  in 
explanation  of  a  word  infinitely  hated, — agitation  and 
agitators,  —  but  an  element  which  the  progress  of  mod- 
ern government  has  developed  more  and  more  every 
day. 

The   great    invention   we    trace    in   its  twilight   and 


DANIEL   O'COXNELL.  401 

seed  to  the  days  of  the  Long  Parliament.  Defoe  and 
[/Estrange,  later  down,  were  the  first  prominent  Eng- 
lishmen to  fling  pamphlets  at  the  House  of  Commons. 
Swift  ruled  England  hy  pamphlets.  Wilberforce  sum- 
moned the  Church,  and  sought  the  alliance  of  influential 
classes.  But  O'Connell  first  showed  a  profound  faith  in 
the  human  tongue.  He  descried  afar  off  the  coming 
omnipotence  of  the  press.  He  called  the  millions  to  his 
side,  appreciated  the  infinite  weight  of  the  simple  human 
heart  and  conscience,  and  grafted  democracy  into  the 
British  empire.  The  later  Abolitionists —  Buxton,  Sturge, 
and  Thompson  —  borrowed  his  method.  Cobden  flung  it 
in  the  face  of  the  almost  omnipotent  landholders  of  Eng- 
land, and  broke  the  Tory  party  forever.  They  only 
hauiit^upper  air  now  in  the  stolen  garments  of  the 
Whigs.  The  English  administration  recognizes  this  new 
partner  in  the  government,  and  waits  to  be  moved  on. 
Garrison  brought  the  new  weapon  to  our  shores.  The 
only  wholly  useful  and  thoroughly  defensible  war  Chris- 
tendom has  seen  in  this  century,  the  greatest  civil  and 
social  change  the  English  race  ever  saw,  are  the  result. 

This  great  servant  and  weapon,  peace  and  constitu- 
tional government  owe  to  O'Connell.  Who  has  given 
progress  a  greater  boon  ?  What  single  agent  has  done 
as  much  to  bless  and  improve  the  world  for  the  last 
fifty  years  ? 

O'Connell  has  been  charged  with  coarse,  violent,  and 
intemperate  language.  The  criticism  is  of  little  im- 
portance. Stupor  and  palsy  never  understand  life. 
White-livered  indifference  is  always  disgusted  and  an- 
noyed by  earnest  conviction.  Protestants  criticised 
Luther  in  the  same  way.  It  took  three  centuries  to 
carry  us  far  off  enough  to  appreciate  his  colossal  pro- 
portions. It  is  a  hundred  years  to-day  since  O'Connell 
was  born.  It  will  take  another  hundred  to  put  us  at 

26 


402  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

such  an  angle  as  will  enable  us  correctly  to  measure 
his  stature.  Premising  that  it  would  be  folly  to  find 
fault  with  a  man  struggling  for  life  because  his  at- 
titudes were  ungraceful,  remembering  the  Scythian 
king's  answer  to  Alexander,  criticising  his  strange 
weapon,  —  u  If  you  knew  how  precious  freedom  was, 
you  would  defend  it  even  with  axes,"  —  we  must  see 
that  O'Coimell's  own  explanation  is  evidently  sincere 
and  true.  He  found  the  Irish  heart  so  cowed,  and 
Englishmen  so  arrogant,  that  he  saw  it  needed  an  inde- 
pendence verging  on  insolence,  a  defiance  that  touched 
extremest  limits,  to  breathe  self-respect  into  his  own 
race,  teach  the  aggressor  manners,  an4  sober  him  into 
respectful  attention. 

It  was  the  same  with  us  Abolitionists.  Webster  had 
taught  the  North  the  'bated  breath  and  crouching  of  a 
slave.  It  needed  with  us  an  attitude  of  independence 
that  was  almost  insolent,  it  needed  that  we  should  ex- 
haust even  the  Saxon  vocabulary  of  scorn,  to  fitly  utter 
the  righteous  and  haughty  contempt  that  honest  men 
had  for  man-stealers.  Only  in  that  way  could  we  wake 
the  North  to  self-respect,  or  teach  the  South  that  at 
length  she  had  met  her  equal,  if  not  her  master.  On 
a  broad  canvas,  meant  for  the  public  square,  the  tiny 
lines  of  a  Dutch  interior  would  be  invisible.  In  no 
other  circumstances  was  the  French  maxim,  "  You  can 
never  make  a  revolution  with  rose-water,"  more  pro- 
foundly true.  The  world  has  hardly  yet  learned  how 
deep  a  philosophy  lies  hid  in  Hamlet's, — 

"  Nay,  an  thou  'It  mouth, 
I  '11  rant  as  well  as  thou." 

O'Connell  has  been  charged  with  insincerity  in  urging 
repeal,  and  those  who  defended  his  sincerity  have  leaned 
toward  allowing  that  it  proved  his  lack  of  common- 
sense.  I  think  both  critics  mistaken.  His  earliest 


DANIEL    O'CONNELL.  403 

speeches  point  to  repeal  as  his  ultimate  object;  indeed, 
lie  valued  emancipation  largely  as  a  means  to  that  end. 
No  fair  view  of  his  whole  life  will  leave  the  slight- 
est ground  to  doubt  his  sincerity.  As  for  the  reason- 
ableness and  necessity  of  the  measure,  1  think  every 
year  proves  them.  Considering  O'Connell's  position, 
I  wholly  sympathize  in  his  profound  and  unshaken 
loyalty  to  the  empire.  Its  share  in  the  British  empire 
makes  Ireland's  strength  and  importance.  Standing 
alone  among  the  vast  and  massive  sovereignties  of 
Europe,  she  would  be  weak,  insignificant,  and  helpless. 
Were  I  an  Irishman  I  should  cling  to  the  empire. 

Fifty  or  sixty  years  hence,  when  scorn  of  race  has 
vanished,  and  bigotry  is  lessened,  it  may  be  possible 
for  Ireland  to  be  safe  and  free  while  holding  the  posi- 
tion to  England  that  Scotland  does.  But  during  this 
generation  and  the  next,  O'Connell  was  wise  in  claim- 
ing that  Ireland's  rights  would  never  be  safe  without 
"  home  rule."  A  substantial  repeal  of  the  union  should 
be  every  Irishman's  earnest  aim.  Were  I  their  adviser, 
I  should  constantly  repeat  what  G rattan  said  in  1810, 
"  The  best  advice,  gentlemen,  I  can  give  on  all  occa- 
sions is,  '  Keep  knocking  at  the  union.' " 

We  imagine  an  Irishman  to  be  only  a  zealot  on  fire. 
We  fancy  Irish  spirit  and  eloquence  to  be  only  blind, 
reckless,  headlong  enthusiasm.  But,  in  truth,  Grattan 
was  the  soberest  leader  of  his  day,  holding  scrupu- 
lously back  the  disorderly  elements,  which  fretted 
under  his  curb.  There  was  one  hour,  at  least,  when 
a  word  from  him  would  have  lighted  a  democratic  re- 
volt throughout  the  empire.  And  the  most  remarkable 
of  O'Connell's  gifts  was  neither  his  eloquence  nor  his 
sagacity  :  it  was  his_j>atience,  —  u  patience,  all  the  pas- 
sion of  great  souls ;  "  the  tireless  patience,  which,  from 
1800  to  1820,  went  from  town  to  town,  little  aided  by 


404  DANIEL    O'CONNELL. 

the  press,  to  plant  the  seeds  of  an  intelligent  and 
united,  as  well  as  hot  patriotism.  Then,  after  many 
years  and  long  toil,  waiting  for  rivals  to  be  just,  for 
prejudice  to  wear  out,  and  for  narrowness  to  grow  wise, 
using  British  folly  and  oppression  as  his  wand,  he 
moulded  the  enthusiasm  of  the  most  excitable  of  races, 
the  just  and  inevitable  indignation  of  four  millions  of 
Catholics,  the  hate  of  plundered  poverty,  priest,  noble, 
and  peasant,  into  one  fierce  though  harmonious  mass. 
He  held  it  in  careful  check,  with  sober  moderation, 
watching  every  opportunity,  attracting  ally  after  ally, 
never  forfeiting  any  possible  friendship,  allowing  no 
provocation  to  stir  him  to  anything  that  would  not 
help  his  cause,  compelling  each  hottest  and  most  igno- 
rant of  his  followers  to  remember  that  "  he  who  com- 
mits a  crime  helps  the  enemy."  At  last,  when  the  hour 
struck,  this  power  was  made  to  achieve  justice  for  itself, 
and  put  him  in  London,  —  him,  this  despised  Irishman, 
this  hated  Catholic,  this  mere  demagogue  and  man  of 
words,  him,  —  to  hold  the  Tory  party  in  one  hand,  and 
the  Whig  party  in  the  other ;  all  this  without  shedding  a 
drop  of  blood,  or  disturbing  for  a  moment  the  peace  of 
the  empire. 

While  O'Connell  held  Ireland  in  his  hand,  her  people 
were  more  orderly,  law-abiding,  and  peaceful  than  for  a 
century  before,  or  during  any  year  since.  The  strength 
of  this  marvellous  control  passes  comprehension.  Out 
West,  I  met  an  Irishman  whose  father  held  him  up  to  see 
O'Connell  address  the  two  hundred  thousand  men  at 
Tara,  —  literally  to  see,  not  to  hear  him.  I  said,  "  But 
you  could  not  all  hear  even  his  voice."  "Oh,  no,  sir! 
Only  about  thirty  thousand  could  hear  him ;  but  we  all 
kept  as  still  and  silent  as  if  we  did.''1  With  magnani- 
mous frankness  O'Connell  once  said,  "  I  never  could 
have  held  those  monster  meetings  without  a  crime,  with- 


DANIEL    O'CONNELL.  405 

out  disorder,  tumult,  or  quarrel,  except  for  Father 
Muthew's  aid."  Any  man  can  build  a  furnace,  and  turn 
water  into  steam,  —  yes,  if  careless,  make  it  rend  hi& 
dwelling  in  pieces.  Genius  builds  the  locomotive,  har- 
nesses this  terrible  power  in  iron  traces,  holds  it  with 
master-hand  in  useful  limits,  and  gives  it  to  the  peace- 
able service  of  man.  The  Irish  people  were  O'Connell's 
locomotive ;  sagacious  patience  and  moderation  the 
genius  that  built  it;  Parliament  and  justice  the  station 
he  reached. 

Every  one  who  has  studied  O'Connell's  life  sees  his 
marked  likeness  to  Luther,  —  the  unity  of  both  their 
lives ;  their  wit ;  the  same  massive  strength,  even  if 
coarse-grained  ;  the  ease  with  which  each  reached  the 
masses,  the  power  with  which  they  wielded  them ;  the 
same  unrivalled  eloquence,  fit  for  any  audience  ;  the  same 
instinct  of  genius  that  led  them  constantly  to  acts  which, 
as  Voltaire  said,  "  Foolish  men  call  rash,  but  wisdom 
sees  to  be  brave  ; "  the  same  broad  success.  But  O'Con- 
nell  had  one  great  element  which  Luther  lacked,  —  the 
universality  of  his  sympathy  ;  the  far-reaching  sagacity 
which  discerned  truth  afar  off,  just  struggling  above  the 
horizon ;  the  loyal,  brave,  and  frank  spirit  which  ac- 
knowledged and  served  it ;  the  profound  and  rare  faith 
which  believed  that  "  the  whole  of  truth  can  never 
do  harm  to  the  whole  of  virtue."  From  the  serene 
height  of  intellect  and  judgment  to  which  God's  gifts 
had  lifted  him,  he  saw  clearly  that  no  one  right  was  ever 
in  the  way  of  another,  that  injustice  harms  the  wrong- 
doer even  more  than  the  victim,  that  whoever  puts  a 
chain  on  another  fastens  it  also  on  himself.  Serenely 
confident  that  the  truth  is  always  safe,  and  justice 
always  expedient,  he  saw  that  intolerance  is  only 
want  of  faith.  He  who  stifles  free  discussion  secretly 
doubts  whether  what  he  professes  to  believe  is  really 


406  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

true.  Coleridge  says,  "  See  how  triumphant  in  debate 
and  notion  O'Connell  is  !  Why  ?  Because  he  asserts  a 
broad  principle,  acts  up  to  it,  rests  his  body  on  it,  and 
has  faith  in  it." 

Coworker  with  Father  Mathew ;  champion  of  the 
dissenters ;  advocating  the  substantial  principles  of  the 
Charter,  though  not  a  Chartist ;  foe  of  the  corn-laws ; 
battling  against  slavery,  whether  in  India  or  the  Caro- 
linas  ;  the  great  democrat  who  in  Europe  seventy  years 
ago  called  the  people  to  his  side ;  starting  a  movement 
of  the  people,  for  the  people,  by  the  people,  —  show  me 
another  record  as  broad  and  brave  as  this  in  the  Euro- 
pean history  of  our  century.  Where  is  the  English 
statesman,  where  the  Irish  leader,  who  can  claim  one  ? 
No  wonder  every  Englishman  hated  and  feared  him ! 
He  wounded  their  prejudices  at  every  point.  Whig  and 
Tory,  timid  Liberal,  narrow  Dissenter,  bitter  Radical,— 
all  feared  and  hated  this  broad  brave  soul,  who  dared  to 
follow  Truth  wherever  he  saw  her,  whose  toleration  was 
as  broad  as  human  nature,  and  his  sympathy  as  bound- 
less as  the  sea. 

To  show  you  that  he  never  took  a  leaf  from  our 
American  gospel  of  compromise ;  that  he  never  filed 
his  tongue  to  silence  on  one  truth,  fancying  so  to  help 
another ;  that  he  never  sacrificed  any  race  to  save  even 
Ireland, — let  me  compare  him  with  Kossuth,  whose 
only  merits  were  his  eloquence  and  his  patriotism. 
When  Kossuth  was  in  Faneuil  Hall,  he  exclaimed, 
"  Here  is  a  flag  without  a  stain,  a  nation  without  a 
crime  !  "  We  Abolitionists  appealed  to  him,  "  O  eloquent 
son  of  the  Magyar,  come  to  break  chains !  have  you  no 
word,  no  pulse-beat,  for  four  millions  of  negroes  bending 
under  a  yoke  ten  times  heavier  than  that  of  Hungary  ?  " 
He  answered,  "  I  would  forget  anybody,  I  would  praise 
anything,  to  help  Hungary." 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.  407 

O'Connell  never  said  anything  like  that.  When  I  was 
in  Naples,  I  asked  Sir  Thomas  Fowell  Buxton,  a  Tory, 
u  Is  O'Connell  an  honest  man  ?  "  "  As  honest  a  man  as 
over  breathed,"  said  he,  and  then  told  me  this  story : 
"  When,  in  1830,  O'Connell  entered  Parliament,  the  Anti- 
slavery  cause  was  so  weak  that  it  had  only  Lushington 
and  myself  to  speak  for  it ;  and  we  agreed  that  when  he 
spoke  I  should  cheer  him,  and  when  I  spoke  he  should 
cheer  me ;  and  these  were  the  only  cheers  we  ever  got. 
O'Connell  came,  with  one  Irish  member  to  support  him.  ^ 
A  large  number  of  members  [1  think  Buxton  said  twenty- 
seven]  whom  we  called  the  West-India  interest,  the  T 
Bristol  party,  the  slave  party,  went  to  him,  saying, 
4  O'Connell,  at  last  you  are  in  the  House,  with  one 
helper.  Jf  you  will  never  go  down  to  Freemasons'  Hall 
with  Buxton  and  Brougham,  here  are  twenty-seven  votes 
for  you  on  every  Irish  question.  If  you  work  with  those 
Abolitionists,  count  us  always  against  you.'  " 

It  was  a  terrible  temptation.  How  many  a  so-called 
statesman  would  have  yielded  !  O'Connell  said,  "  Gen- 
tlemen, God  knows  I  speak  for  the  saddest  people  the 
sun  sees  ;  but  may  my  right  hand  forget  its  cunning,  and 
my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth,  if  to  save 
Ireland,  even  Ireland,  I  forget  the  negro  one  single 
hour !  "  "  From  that  day,"  said  $uxton,  "  Lushington 
and  I  never  went  into  the  lobby  that  O'Connell  did  not 
follow  us." 

Some  years  afterwards  I  went  into  Conciliation  Hall 
where* O'Connell  was  arguing  for  repeal.  He  lifted  from  the 
table  a  thousand-pound  note  sent  them  from  New  Orleans, 
and  said  to  be  from  the  slave-holders  of  that  city.  Com- 
ing to  the  front  of  the  platform,  he  said  :  "  This  is  a  draft 
of  one  thousand  pounds  from  the  slave-holders  of  New- 
Orleans,  the  unpaid  wages  of  the  negro.  Mr.  Treasurer,  I 
suppose  the  treasury  is  empty  ?  "  The  treasurer  nodded 


408 

to  show  him  that  it  was,  and  he  went  on.  "  Old  Ireland 
is  very  poor ;  but  thank  God  she  is  not  poor  enough  to 
take  the  unpaid  wages  of  anybody.  Send  it  back."  A 
gentleman  from  Boston  went  to  him  with  a  letter  of  in- 
troduction, which  he  sent  up  to  him  at  his  house  in 
Merrion  Square.  O'Connell  came  down  to  the  door,  as 
was  his  wont,  put  out  both  his  hands,  and  drew  him  into 
his  library.  "  I  am  glad  to  see  you,"  said  he ;  "  I  am 
always  glad  to  see  anybody  from  Massachusetts,  a  free 
State."  "  But,"  said  the  guest,  "  this  is  slavery  you 
allude  to,  Mr.  O'Connell.  1  would  like  to  say  a  word 
to  you  in  justification  of  that  institution."  u  Very  well, 
sir,  —  free  speech  in  this  house  ;  say  anything  you 
please.  But  before  you  begin  to  defend  a  man's  right 
to  own  his  brother,  allow  me  to  step  out  and  lock  up  my 
spoons." 

That  was  the  man.  The  ocean  of  his  philanthropy 
knew  no  shore. 

And  right  in  this  connection,  let  me  read  the  follow- 
ing despatch :  — 

;  CINCINNATI,  O.,  August  6. 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS,  BOSTON  : 

The  national  conference  of  colored  newspaper-men  to  the 
O'Connell  Celebration,  greeting  :  — 

'••  Resolved,  That  it  is  befitting  a  convention  of  colored  men 
assembled  on  the  centennial  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  the 
liberator  of  Ireland  and  friend  of  humanitj',  Daniel  O'Con- 
nell, to  recall  with  gratitude  his  eloquent  and  effective  pleas 
for  the  freedom  of  our  race  ;  and  we  earnestly  commend  his 
example  to  our  countrymen. 

J.  C.  JACKSON,   Secretary. 
PETER  H.  CLARK,  President. 
GEORGE  T.  RUBY. 
1  -  •  •  LEWIS  D.  E ASTON. 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.  409 

Learn  of  him,  friends,  the  hardest  lesson  we  ever 
have  set  us,  —  that  of  toleration.  The  foremost  Catholic 
of  his  age,  the  most  stalwart  champion  of  the  Church, 
he  was  also  broadly  and  sincerely  tolerant  of  every 
faith.  His  toleration  had  no  limit  and  no  qualification. 

I  scorn  and  scout  the  word  u  toleration ;  "  it  is  an 
insolent  term.  No  man,  properly  speaking,  tolerates 
another.  I  do  not  tolerate  a  Catholic,  neither  does  he 
tolerate  me.  We  are  equal,  and  acknowledge  each 
other's  right ;  that  is  the  correct  statement. 

That  every  man  should  be  allowed  freely  to  worship 
God  according  to  his  conscience,  that  no  man's  civil 
rights  should  be  affected  by  his  religious  creed,  were 
both  cardinal  principles  of  O'Conncll.  He  had  no  fear 
that  any  doctrine  of  his  faith  could  be  endangered  by 
the  freest  possible  discussion. 

Learn  of  him,  also,  sympathy  with  every  race  and 
every  form  of  oppression.  No  matter  who  was  the 
sufferer,  or  what  the  form  of  the  injustice,  —  starving 
Yorkshire  peasant,  imprisoned  Chartist,  persecuted  Prot- 
estant, or  negro  slave  ;  no  matter  of  what  right,  personal 
or  civil,  the  victim  had  been  robbed ;  no  matter  what 
religious  pretext  or  political  juggle  alleged  "  necessity  " 
as  an  excuse  for  his  oppression ;  no  matter  with  what 
solemnities  he  had  been  devoted  on  the  altar  of  slavery, 
—  the  moment  O'Connell  saw  him,  the  altar  and  the  god 
sank  together  in  the  dust,  the  victim  was  acknowledged 
a  man  and  a  brother,  equal  in  all  rights,  and  entitled  to 
all  the  aid  the  great  Irishman  could  give  him. 

I  have  no  time  to  speak  of  his  marvellous  success  at 
the  bar ;  of  that  profound  skill  in  the  law  which  enabled 
him  to  conduct  such  an  agitation,  always  on  the  verge 
of  illegality  and  violence,  without  once  subjecting  himself 
or  his  followers  to  legal  penalty,  —  an  agitation  under 
a  code  of  which  Brougham  said,  "  No  Catholic  could  lift 


410  DANIEL    O'CONNELL. 

his  hand  under  it  without  breaking  the  law."  I  have 
no  time  to  speak  of  his  still  more  remarkable  success 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  Of  Flood's  failure  there, 
Grattan  had  said,  "  He  was  an  oak  of  the  forest,  too  old 
and  too  great  to  be  transplanted  at  fifty."  Grattan's 
own  success  there  was  but  moderate.  The  power 
O'Connell  wielded  against  varied,  bitter,  and  unscrupu- 
lous opposition  was  marvellous.  I  have  no  time  to 
speak  of  his  personal  independence,  his  deliberate  cour- 
age, moral  and  physical,  his  unspotted  private  character, 
his  unfailing  hope,  the  versatility  of  his  talent,  his  power 
of  tireless  work,  his  ingenuity  and  boundless  resource,  his 
matchless  self-possession  in  every  emergency,  his  ready 
and  inexhaustible  wit ;  but  any  reference  to  O'Connell 
that  omitted  his  eloquence  would  be  painting  Wellington 
in  the  House  of  Lords  without  mention  of  Torres  Vedras 
or  Waterloo. 

Broadly    considered,   his   eloquence   has    never   been 

equalled    in   modern    times,  certainly   not    in    English 

speech.     Do   you   think    I   am   partial  ?     I  will    vouch 

'John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  the  Virginia  slave-holder, 

f'who  hated  an  Irishman  almost  as  much  as  he  hated  a 

Yankee,  himself  an  orator  of  no  mean  level.     Hearing 

O'Connell,  he  exclaimed,  "  This  is  the  man,  these  are 

he   lips,  the  most  eloquent  that  speak  English  in  my 

'ay."     I  think  he  was  right.     I  remember  the  solem- 

:ty  of  Webster,  the  grace  of  Everett,  the  rhetoric  of 

hoate ;  I  know  the  eloquence  that  lay  hid  in  the  iron 

logic  of  Calhoun ;  I  have  melted  beneath  the  magnetism 

of  Sergeant  S.  Prentiss,  of  Mississippi,  who   wielded   a 

power  few  men  ever  had.     It  has  been  my  fortune  to 

sit   at   the  feet  of   the  great  speakers  of  the  English 

tongue  on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean.     But  I  think  all 

of  them  together  never  surpassed,  and  no  one  of  them 

ever  equalled,  O'Connell.     Nature  intended  him  for  our 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.  411 

Demosthenes.  Never  since  the  great  Greek,  has  she  . 
sent  forth  any  one  so  lavishly  gifted  for  his  worji  as  a  V 
tribune  of  the  people.  In  the  first  place,  he  had  a  mag- 
nificent presence,  impressive  in  bearing,  massive,  like 
that  of  Jupiter.  Webster  himself  hardly  outdid  him  in 
the  majesty  of  his  proportions.  To  be  sure,  he  had  not 
Webster's  craggy  face,  and  precipice  of  brow,  nor  his 
eyes  glowing  like  anthracite  coal ;  nor  had  he  the  lion 
roar  of  Mirabeau.  But  his  presence  filled  the  eye.  A 
small  O'Connell  would  haroHy  have  been  an  O'Connell 
at  all.  These  physical  advantages  are  half  the  battle. 

I  remember  Russell  Lowell  telling  us  that  Mr.  Web- 
ster came  home  from  Washington  at  the  time  the  Whig 
party  thought  of  dissolution  a  year  or  two  before  his 
death,  and  went  down  to  Faneuil  Hall  to  protest ;  draw- 
ing  himself    up   to    his   loftiest    proportion,   his    brow 
clothed  with  thunder,  before   the  listening  thousands, 
he  said,  "  Well,  gentlemen,  I  am  a  Whig,  a  Massachu- 
setts Whig,  a  Faneuil-hall  Whig,  a  revolutionary  Whig, 
a  constitutional  Whig.     If  you  break  the  Whig  party, 
sir,  where  am  I  to  go?"     And  says  Lowell,  "  We  held 
our  breath,  thinking  where  he  could  go.     If  he  had  bee 
five  feet  three,  we  should  have  said, '  Who  cares  whei 
you   go  ? ' '       So   it    was    with    O'Connell.     There    wq 
something   majestic  in  his  presence   before  he  spok§ 
and  he  added  to  it  what  Webster  had  not,  what  Clfe 
might  have  lent, —  infinite  grace,  that  magnetism  tiyf 
melts  all  hearts  into  one.     I  saw  him  at  over  sixty- 
years  of  age,  every  attitude  was  beauty, every  gesture  gracv 
You  could  only  think  of  a  greyhound  as  you  looked  $ 
him ;  it  would  have  been  delicious  to  have  watched  hiiji, 
if  he  had  not  spoken  a  word.     Then  he  had  a  voice  that 
covered  the  gamut.     The  majesty  of  his  indignation,  fitly 
uttered  in  tones  of  superhuman  power,  made  him  able  to 
"  indict "  a  nation,  in  spite  of  Burke's  protest. 


412  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

I  heard  him  once  say,  "  I  send  my  voice  across  the 
Atlantic,  careering  like  the  thunder-storm  against  the 
breeze,  to  tell  the  slave-holder  of  the  Carolinas  that 
God's  thunderbolts  are  hot,  and  to  remind  the  bondman 
that  the  dawn  of  his  redemption  is  already  breaking." 
You  seemed  to  hear  the  tones  come  echoing  back  to 
London  from  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Then,  with  t]i£ 
slightest  possible  Irish  brogue,  he  would  tell  a  story^ 
while  all  Exeter  Hall  shook  with  laughter.  The  next 
moment,  tears  in  his  voice  like  a  Scotch  song,  five  thou- 
sand men  wept.  And  all  the  while  no  effort.  He 
seemed  only  breathing. 

"  As  effortless  as  woodland  nooks 
Send  violets  up,  and  paint  them  blue." 

We  used  to  say  of  Webster,  "  This  is  a  great  effort ; " 
of  Everett,  "It  is  a  beautiful  effort ; "  but  you  never 
used  the  word  "effort"  in  speaking  of  O'Connell.  It 
provoked  you  that  he  would  not  make  an  effort.  I 
heard  him  perhaps  a  score  of  times,  and  I  do  not 
think  more  than  three  times  he  ever  lifted  himself  to 
the  full  sweep  of  his  power. 

And  this  wonderful  power,  it  was  not  a  thunder-storm  : 
he  flanked  you  with  his  wit,  he  surprised  you  out  of 
yourself;  you  were  conquered  before  you  knew  it.  He 
was  once  summoned  to  court  out  of  the  hunting-field, 
when  a  young  friend  of  his  of  humble  birth  was  on 
trial  for  his  life.  The  evidence  gathered  around  a  hat 
found  by  the  body  of  the  murdered  man,  which  was 
recognized  as  the  hat  of  the  prisoner.  The  lawyers 
tried  to  break  down  the  evidence,  confuse  the  testimony, 
and  get  some  relief  from  the  directness  of  the  circum- 
stances ;  but  in  vain,  until  at  last  they  called  for  O'Con- 
nell. He  came  in,  flung  his  riding- whip  and  hat  on  the 
table,  was  told  the  circumstances,  and  taking  up  the  hat 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.  413 

said  to  the  witness,  "  Whose  hat  is  this  ?  "  "  Well,  Mr. 
O'Connell,  that  is  Mike's  hat."  — "  How  do  you  know 
it  ?  "  "I  will  swear  to  it,  sir."  —  "  And  did  you  really 
find  it  by  the  murdered  man  ?"  "I  did  that,  sir." - 
"  But  you  're  not  ready  to  swear  that ? "  "I  am,  indeed, 
Mr.  O'Connell."  —  "Pat,  do  you  know  what  hangs  on 
your  word  ?  A  human  soul.  And  with  that  dread  burden, 
are  you  ready  to  tell  this  jury  that  the  hat,  to  your  cer- 
tain knowledge,  belongs  to  the  prisoner  ? "  "  Y-yes, 
Mr.  O'Connell,  yes,  I  am." 

O'Connell  takes  the  hat  to  the  nearest  window,  and 
peers  into  it,  —  "  J-a-m-e-s,  James.     Now,  Pat,  did  you 
see  that  name  in  the  hat  ?  "     "I  did,  Mr.  O'Connell."  - 
"  You  knew  it  was  there  ?"     "  Yes,  sir;  I  read  it  after 
I  picked  it  up."  —  "  No  name  in  the  hat,  your  Honor." 

So  again  in  the  House  of  Commons.  When  he  took 
his  seat  in  the  House  of  1830,  the  London  Times  visited 
him  with  its  constant  indignation,  reported  his  speeches 
awry,  turned  them  inside  out,  and  made  nonsense  of 
them ;  treated  him  as  the  New  York  Herald  used  to 
treat  us  Abolitionists  twenty  years  ago.  So  one  morning 
he  rose  and  said,  "  Mr.  Speaker,  you  know  I  have  never 
opened  my  lips  in  this  House,  and  I  expended  twenty 
years  of  hard  work  in  getting  the  right  to  enter  it, —  I 
have  never  lifted  my  voice  in  this  House,  but  in  behalf 
of  the  saddest  people  the  sun  shines  on.  Is  it  fair  play, 
Mr.  Speaker,  is  it  what  you  call  4  English  fair  play '  that 
the  press  of  this  city  will  not  let  my  voice  be  heard?" 
The  next  day  the  Times  sent  him  word  that,  as  he  found 
fault  with  their  manner  of  reporting  him,  they  never 
would  report  him  at  all,  they  never  would  print  his  name 
in  their  parliamentary  columns.  So  the  next  day  when 
prayers  were  ended,  O'Connell  rose.  Those  reporters  of 
the  Times  who  were  in  the  gallery  rose  also,  ostenta- 
tiously put  away  their  pencils,  folded  their  arms,  and 


414  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

made  all  the  show  they  could,  to  let  everybody  know 
how  it  was.  Well,  you  know  nobody  has  any  right  to 
be  in  the  gallery  during  the  session,  and  if  any  member 
notices  them,  the  mere  notice  clears  the  gallery ;  only 
the  reporters  can  stay  after  that  notice.  O'Connell 
rose.  One  of  the  members  said,  "  Before  the  member 
from  Clare  opens  his  speech,  let  me  call  his  attention  to 
the  gallery  and  the  instance  of  that  *  passive  resistance  ' 
which  he  is  about  to  preach."  "  Thank  you,"  said 
O'Connell :  "  Mr.  Speaker,  I  observe  strangers  in  the 
gallery."  Of  course  they  left ;  of  course  the  next  day, 
in  the  columns  of  the  London  Times,  there  were  no  par- 
liamentary debates.  And  for  the  first  time,  except  in 
Richard  Cobden's  case,  the  London  Times  cried  for 
quarter,  and  said  to  O'Connell,  "  If  you  give  up  the 
quarrel,  we  will." 

Later  down,  when  he  was  advocating  the  repeal  of  the 
land  law,  when  forty  or  fifty  thousand  people  were  gath- 
ered at  the  meeting,  O'Connell  was  sitting  at  the 
breakfast-table.  The  London  Times  for  that  year  had 
absolutely  disgraced  itself,  —  and  that  is  saying  a  great 
deal,  —  and  its  reporters,  if  recognized,  would  have  been 
torn  to  pieces.  So,  as  O'Connell  was  breakfasting,  the 
door  opened,  and  two  or  three  English  reporters  — 
Gurney,  and  among  others  our  well-known  friend 
Russell  of  Bull  Run  notoriety  —  entered  the  room  and 
said,"  Mr.  O'Connell,  we  are  the  reporters  of  the  Times" 
"  And,"  said  Russell,  "  we  dared  not  enter  that  crowd." 

"  Should  n't  think  you  would,"  replied  O'Connell. 
"  Have  you  had  any  breakfast  ?  " 

"  No,  sir,"  said  he  ;  "  we  hardly  dared  to  ask  for  any." 

"  Should  n't  think  you  would,"  answered  O'Connell ; 
"  sit  down  here."  So  they  shared  his  breakfast.  Then  he 
took  Bull  Run  in  his  own  carriage  to  the  place  of  meet- 
ing, sent  for  a  table  and  seated  him  by  the  platform, 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.  415 

and  asked  him  whether  he  had  his  pencils  well  sharpened 
and  had  plenty  of  paper,  as  he  intended  to  make  a  long 
speech.  Bull  Run  answered,  "  Yes."  And  O'Connell 
stood  up,  and  addressed  the  audience  in  Irish. 

His  marvellous  voice,  its  almost  incredible  power  and 
sweetness,  Bulwer  has  well  described  :  — 

"  Once  to  my  sight  that  giant  form  was  given, 
Walled  by  wide  air,  and  roofed  by  boundless  heaven. 
Beneath  his  feet  the  human  ocean  lay, 
And  wave  on  wave  rolled  into  space  away. 
Methought  no  clarion  could  have  sent  its  sound 
Even  to  the  centre  of  the  hosts  around  ; 
And,  as  I  thought£*rose  the  sonorous  swell, 
As  from  some  church-tower  swings  the  silvery  bell. 
Aloft  and  clear,  from  airy  tide  to  tide 
It  glided,  easy  as  a  bird  may  glide  ; 
Even  to  the  verge  of  that  vast  audience  sent, 
It  played  with  each  wild  passion  as  it  went,  — 
Now  stirred  the  uproar,  now  the  murmur  stilled, 
And  sobs  or  laughter  answered  as  it  willed." 

Webster  could  awe  a  senate,  Everett  could  charm  a 
college,  and  Choate  could  cheat  a  jury  ;  Clay  could 
magnetize  the  million,  and  Corwin  lead  them  captive. 
O'Connell  was  Clay,  Corwin,  Choate,  Everett,  and  Web- 
ster in  one.  Before  the  courts,  logic ;  at  the  bar  of  the 
senate,  unanswerable  and  dignified ;  on  the  platform, 
grace,  wit,  and  pathos  ;  before  the  masses,  a  whole  man. 
Carlyle  says,  "  He  is  God's  own  anointed  king  whose 
single  word  melts  all  wills  into  his."  This  describes 
O'Connell.  Emerson  says,  "  There  is  no  true  eloquence, 
unless  there  is  a  man  behind  the  speech."  Daniel 
O'Connell  was  listened  to  because  all  England  and  all 
Ireland  knew  that  there  was  a  man  behind  the  speech,  — 
one  who  could  be  neither  bought,  bullied,  nor  cheated. 
He  held  the  masses  free  but  willing  subjects  in  his  hand. 

He  owed  this  power  to  the  courage  that  met  every 
new  question  frankly,  and  concealed  none  of  his  con- 


416  DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 

viciions ;  to  an  entireness  of  devotion  that  made  the 
people  feel  he  was  all  their  own  ;  to  a  masterly  brain 
that  made  them  sure  they  were  always  safe  in  his  hands. 
Behind  them  were  ages  of  bloodshed  :  every  rising  had 
ended  at  the  scaffold  ;  even  Grattan  brought  them  to 
1798.  O'Connell  said,  "  Follow  me  :  put  your  feet  where 
mine  have  trod,  and  a  sheriff  shall  never  lay  hand  on 
your  shoulder."  And  the  great  lawyer  kept  his  pledge. 
This  unmatched,  long-continued  power  almost  passes 
belief.  You  can  only  appreciate  it  by  comparison.  Let 
me  carry  you  back  to  the  mob-year  of  1835,  in  this 
country,  when  the  Abolitionists  were  hunted  ;  when  the 
streets  roared  with  riot ;  when  from  Boston  to  Balti- 
more, from  St.  Louis  to  Philadelphia,  a  mob  took  pos- 
session of  every  city ;  when  private  houses  were  invaded 
and  public  halls  were  burned  ;  press  after  press  was 
thrown  into  the  river;  and  Lovejoy  baptized  freedom 
with  his  blood.  You  remember  it.  Respectable  jour- 
nals warned  the  mob  that  they  were  playing  into  the 
hands  of  the  Abolitionists.  Webster  and  Clay  and  the 
staff  of  Whig  statesmen  told  the  people  that  the  truth 
floated  farther  on  the  shouts  of  the  mob  than  the  most 
eloquent  lips  could  carry  it.  But  law-abiding,  Protest- 
ant, educated  America  could  not  be  held  back.  Neither 
Whig  chiefs  nor  respectable  journals  could  keep  these 
people  quiet.  Go  to  England.  When  the  Reform  Bill 
of  1831  was  thrown  out  from  the  House  of  Lords,  the 
people  were  tumultuous ;  and  Melbourne  and  Grey, 
Russell  and  Brougham,  Lansdowne,  Holland,  and  Macau- 
lay,  the  Whig  chiefs,  cried  ou-t,  "  Don't  violate  the  law  : 
you  help  the  Tories  !  Riots  put  back  the  bill."  But 
quiet,  sober  John  Bull,  law-abiding,  could  not  do  without 
it.  Birmingham  was  three  days  in  the  hands  of  a  mob  ; 
castles  were  burned ;  Wellington  ordered  the  Scotch 
Greys  to  rough-grind  their  swords  as  at  Waterloo. 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.  417 

This  was  the  Whig  aristocracy  of  England.  O'Connell 
had  neither  office  nor  title.  Behind  him  were  three 
million  people  steeped  in  utter  wretchedness,  sore  with 
the  oppression  of  centuries,  ignored  by  statute. 

For  thirty  restless  and  turbulent  years  he  stood  in 
front  of  them,  and  said,  "  Remember,  he  that  commits 
a  crime  helps  the  enemy."  And  during  that  long  and 
fearful  struggle,  I  do  not  remember  one  of  his  followers 
ever  being  convicted  of  a  political  offence,  and  during 
this  period  crimes  of  violence  were  very  rare.  There  is 
no  such  record  in  our  history.  Neither  in  classic  nor 
in  modern  times  can  the  man  be  produced  who  held  a 
million  of  people  in  his  right  hand  so  passive.  It  was 
due  to  the  consistency  and  unity  of  a  character  that 
had  hardly  a  flaw.  I  do  not  forget  your  soldiers,  ora- 
tors, or  poets,  —  any  of  your  leaders.  But  when  I  con- 
sider O'ConnelPs  personal  disinterestedness,  —  his  rare, 
brave  fidelity  to  every  cause  his  principles  covered,  no 
matter  how  unpopular,  or  how  embarrassing  to  his 
main  purpose,  —  that  clear,  far-reaching  vision,  and 
true  heart,  which,  on  most  moral  and  political  ques- 
tions, set  him  so  much  ahead  of  his  times  ;  his  elo- 
quence, almost  equally  effective  in  the  courts,  in  the 
senate,  and  before  the  masses  ;  that  sagacity  which  set 
at  naught  the  malignant  vigilance  of  the  whole  imperial 
bar,  watching  thirty  years  for  a  misstep ;  when  I  re- 
member that  he  invented  his  tools,  and  then  measure 
his  limited  means  with  his  vast  success,  bearing  in  mind 
its  nature  ;  when  I  see  the  sobriety  and  moderation 
with  which  he  used  his  measureless  power,  and  the 
lofty,  generous  purpose  of  his  whole  life, — I  am  ready 
to  affirm  that  he  was,  all  things  considered,  the  greatest 
man  the  Irish  race  ever  produced. 

27 


TRIBUTES. 


THEODORE  PARKER. 


I. 

From  the  Proceedings  of  the  New  England  Antislavery  Conven- 
tion at  the  Melodeon,  Boston,  May  31,  18(>0. 

The  following  resolutions  were  offered  by  Wendell  Phillips  :  — 
Resolved,  That  in  the  death  of  our  beloved  friend  and  fellow- 
laborer  Theodore  Parker,  liberty,  justice,  and  truth  lose  one  of  their 
ablest  and  foremost  champions,  —  one  whose  tireless  industry,  whose 
learning,  the  broadest,  most  thorough,  and  profound  New  England 
knows,  whose  masterly  intellect,  melted  into  a  brave  and  fervent 
heart,  earned  for  him  the  widest  and  most  abiding  influence;  in  the 
service  of  truth  and  right,  lavish  of  means,  prodigal  of  labor,  fearless 
of  utterance;  the  most  Christian  minister  at  God's  altar  in  all  our 
Commonwealth ;  one  of  the  few  whose  fidelity  saves  the  name  of  the 
ministry  from  being  justly  a  reproach  and  by- word  with  religious  and 
thinking  men  ;  a  kind,  true  heart,  full  of  womanly  tenderness ;  the 
object  of  the  most  unscrupulous  even  of  bigot  and  priestly  hate,  yet 
on  whose  garments  bitter  and  watchful  malice  found  no  stain ;  lay- 
ing on  the  altar  the  fruits  of  the  most  unresting  toil,  yet  ever  ready 
as  the  idlest  to  man  any  post  of  daily  and  humble  duty  at  any  mo- 
ment. In  him  we  lose  that  strong  sense,  deep  feeling,  and  love  of 
right  for  whose  eloquent  voice  millions  waited  in  every  hour  of  dark- 
ness and  peril  ;  whose  last  word  came,  fitly,  across  the  water  a  salu- 
tation and  a  blessing  to  the  kindred  martyrs  of  Harper's  Ferry ;  a 
storehouse  of  the  lore  of  every  language  and  age;  the  armory  of  a 
score  of  weapons  sacred  to  right ;  the  leader  whose  voice  was  the  bond 
of  a  mighty  host ;  the  friend  ever  sincere,  loyal,  and  vigilant ;  a  man 
whose  fidelity  was  attested  equally  by  the  trust  of  those  who  loved 
him,  and  the  hate  of  everything  selfish,  heartless,  and  base  in  the 
land.  In  time  to  come  the  slave  will  miss  keenly  that  voice  always 
heard  in  his  behalf,  and  which  a  nation  was  learning  to  heed ;  and 


422  THEODORE   PARKER. 

whoever  anywhere  lifts  a  hand  for  any  victim  of  wrong  and  sin,  will 
be  lonelier  and  weaker  for  the  death  we  mourn  to-day. 

Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  the  above  resolution  be  sent  to  Mrs.  Par- 
ker, with  fit  expression  of  our  most  sincere  and  respectful  sympathy 
in  this  hour  of  her  bitter  grief  and  sad  bereavement. 

A  NOTHER  friend  is  gone.  Not  gone  !  No,  with  us, 
-/~\  only  standing  one  step  higher  than  he  did.  To 
such  spirits,  there  is  no  death.  In  the  old  times,  when 
men  fought  with  spears,  the  warrior  hurled  his  weapon 
into  the  thickest  of  the  opposite  host,  and  struggled 
bravely  on,  until  he  stood  over  it  and  reclaimed  it.  In 
the  bloom  of  his  youth,  Theodore  Parker  flung  his  heart 
forward  at  the  feet  of  the  Eternal ;  he  has  only  struggled 
onward  and  reached  it  to-day.  Only  one  step  higher ! 

"  Wail  ye  may  full  well  for  Scotland, 
Let  none  dare  to  mourn  for  him." 

How  shall  we  group  his  qualities  ?  The  first  that 
occurs  to  me  is  the  tireless  industry  of  that  unresting 
brain  which  never  seemed  to  need  leisure.  When  some 
engagement  brought  me  home  in  the  small  hours  of  the 
morning,  many  and  many  a  time  have  I  looked  out  (my 
own  window  commands  those  of  his  study),  and  seen 
that  unquenched  light  burning,  —  that  unflagging  student 
ever  at  work.  Half  curious,  half  ashamed,  I  lay  down, 
saying  with  the  Athenian,  "  The  trophies  of  Miltiades 
will  not  let  me  sleep."  He  seemed  to  rebuke  me  even  by 
the  light  that  flashed  from  the  window  of  his  study.  I 
have  met  him  on  the  cars  deep  in  some  strange  tongue, 
or  hiving  up  knowledge  to  protect  the  weak  and  hated  of 
his  own  city.  Neither  on  the  journey  nor  at  home  did 
his  spirit  need  to  rest. 

Why  is  he  dead  ?  Because  he  took  up  the  burden  of 
three  men.  A  faithful  pulpit  is  enough  for  one  man. 
He  filled  it  until  the  fulness  of  his  ideas  overflowed  into 


THEODORE   PARKER.  423 

other  channels.  It  was  not  enough.  His  diocese  ex- 
tended to  the  prairies.  On  every  night  of  the  week,  those 
brave  lips  smothered  bigotry,  conquered  prejudice,  and 
melted  true  hearts  into  his  own  on  the  banks  of  the 
Mississippi.  This  was  enough  for  two  men.  But  he  said, 
"  I  will  bring  to  this  altar  of  Reform  a  costlier  offering 
yet,"  and  he  gathered  the  sheaf  of  all  literature  into  his 
bosom,  and  came  with  another  man's  work,  —  almost  all 
the  thoughts  of  all  ages  and  all  tongues,  —  as  the  back- 
ground of  his  influence  in  behalf  of  the  slave.  He  said, 
"  Let  no  superficial  scholarship  presume  to  arraign  Re- 
form as  arrogant  and  empty  fanaticism.  I  will  overtop 
your  candidates  with  language  and  law,  and  show  you,  in 
all  tongues,  by  arguments  hoar  with  antiquity,  the  right- 
fulness  and  inevitable  necessity  of  justice  and  liberty." 
Enough  work  for  three  men  to  do ;  and  he  sank  under 
the  burden. 

Lord  Bacon  says,  "  Studies  teach  not  their  own  use  ; 
that  comes  from  a  wisdom  without  them  and  above 
them."  The  fault  of  New  England  scholarship  is  that  it 
knows  not  its  own  use;  that, as  Bacon  says,  "  it  settles 
in  its  fixed  ways,  and  does  not  seek  reformation."  The 
praise  of  this  scholar  is,  that,  like  the  great  master  of 
English  philosophy,  he  was  content  to  light  his  torch  at 
every  man's  candle.  He  was  not  ashamed  to  learn. 
When  he  started  in  the  pulpit,  he  came  a  Unitarian,  with 
the  blessings  of  Cambridge.  Men  say  he  is  a  Unitarian 
no  longer ;  but  the  manna,  when  it  was  kept  two  days, 
bred  maggots,  and  the  little  worms  that  run  about  on  the 
surface  of  corruption  call  themselves  the  children  and 
representatives  of  Channing.  They  are  only  the  worms 
of  the  manna,  and  the  pulpit  of  Federal  Street  found  its 
child  at  Music  Hall.  God's  lineage  is  not  of  blood. 
Brewster  of  Plymouth,  if  he  stood  here  to-day,  would  not 
be  in  the  Orthodox  Church,  counting  on  his  anxious  fin- 


424  THEODORE   PARKER. 

gers  the  five  points  of  Calvin.  No !  he  would  be  shoul- 
dering a  Sharpens  rifle  in  Kansas,  fighting  against  the 
lihels  of  the  Independent  and  Observer,  preaching 
treason  in  Virginia,  and  hung  on  an  American  gibbet ; 
for  the  child  of  Puritanism  is  not  mere  Calvinism,  —  it  is 
the  loyalty  to  justice  which  tramples  under  foot  the 
wicked  laws  of  its  own  epoch.  So  Unitarianism  —  so  far 
as  it  has  any  worth  — is  not  standing  in  the  same  pulpit, 
or  muttering  the  same  shibboleth ;  it  is,  like  Channing, 
looking  into  the  face  of  a  national  sin  and,  with  lips 
touched  like  Isaiah's,  finding  it  impossible  not  to  launch 
at  it  the  thunderbolt  of  God's  rebuke. 

Old  Lyman  Beecher  said,"  If  you  want  to  find  the  suc- 
cessor of  Saint  Paul,  seek  him  where  you  find  the  same 
objections  made  to  a  preacher  that  were  made  to  Saint 
Paul."  Who  won  the  hatred  of  the  merchant-princes  of 
Boston  ?  Whom  did  State  Street  call  a  madman  ?  The 
fanatic  of  Federal  Street  in  1837.  Whom,  with  unerring 
instinct,  did  that  same  herd  of  merchant-princes  hate, 
with  instinctive  certainty  that,  in  order  that  their  craft 
should  be  safe,  they  ought  to  hate  him  ?  The  Apostle  of 
Music  Hall.  That  is  enough. 

When  some  Americans  die — when  most  Americans 
die  —  their  friends  tire  the  public  with  excuse*.  They 
confess  this  spot,  they  explain  that  stain,  they  plead  cir- 
cumstances as  the  half  justification  of  that  mistake,  and 
they  beg  of  us  to  remember  that  nothing  but  good  is  to 
be  spoken  of  the  dead.  We  need  no  such  mantle  for  that 
green  grave  under  the  sky  of  Florence,  —  no  excuses, 
no  explanations,  no  spot.  Priestly  malice  has  scanned 
every  inch  of  his  garment, —  it  was  seamless ;  it  could 
find  no  stain.  History,  as  in  the  case  of  every  other  of 
her  beloved  children,  gathers  into  her  bosom  the  arrows 
which  malice  had  shot  at  him,  and  says  to  posterity, 
"  Behold  the  title-deeds  of  your  gratitude  !  "  We  ask  no 


THEODORE   PARKER.  425 

moment  to  excuse,  there  is  nothing  to  explain.  What 
the  snarling  journal  thought  bold,  what  the  selfish  politi- 
cian feared  as  his  ruin,  —  it  was  God's  seal  set  upon  his 
apostleship.  The  little  libel  glanced  across  him  like  a 
rocket  when  it  goes  over  the  vault ;  it  is  passed,  and  the 
royal  sun  shines  out  as  beneficent  as  ever. 

When  I  returned  from  New  York  on  the  thirteenth  day 
of  this  month,  I  was  to  have  been  honored  by  standing 
in  his  desk,  but  illness  prevented  my  fulfilling  the  ap- 
pointment. It  was  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning.  As 
he  sank  away  the  same  week,  under  the  fair  sky  of  Italy, 
he  said  to  the  most  loving  of  wives  and  of  nurses,  "  Let 
me  be  buried  where  I  fall ;  "  and  tenderly,  thoughtfully, 
she  selected  four  o'clock  of  the  same  Sunday  to  mingle 
his  dust  with  the  kindred  dust  of  brave,  classic  Italy. 

Four  o'clock  !  The  same  sun  that  looked  upon  the 
half-dozen  mourners  that  he  permitted  to  follow  him  to 
the  grave,  that  same  moment  of  brightness  lighted  up 
the  arches  of  his  own  Temple,  as  one  whom  he  loved 
stepped  into  his  own  desk,  and  with  remarkable  coinci- 
dence, for  the  only  time  during  his  absence,  opened  one 
of  his  own  sermons  to  supply  my  place  ;  and  as  his  friend 
read  the  Beatitudes  over  his  grave  on  the  banks  of  the 
Arno,  his  dearer  friend  here  read  from  a  manuscript  the 
text,  "  Have  faith  in  God."  It  is  said  that,  in  his  last 
hours,  in  the  wandering  of  that  masterly  brain,  he  mur- 
mured, "  There  are  two  Theodore  "Parkers,  —  one  rests 
here,  dying,  but  the  other  lives,  and  is  at  work  at  home." 
How  true !  at  that  very  instant,  his  own  words  were 
sinking  down  into  the  hearts  of  those  that  loved  him 
best,  and  bidding  them,  in  this,  the  loneliest  hour  of  their 
bereavement,  "  Have  faith  in  God." 

He  always  came  to  this  platform.  He  is  an  old  occu- 
pant of  it.  He  never  made  an  apology  for  coming  to  it. 
1  remember  many  years  ago,  going  home  from  the  very 


426  THEODORE   PARKER. 

hall  which  formerly  occupied  this  place.  He  had  sat 
where  you  sit,  in  the  seats,  looking  up  to  us.  It  had  been 
a  stormy,  hard  gathering,  —  a  close  fight ;  the,  press  ca- 
lumniating us  ;  every  journal  in  Boston  ridiculing  the 
idea  which  we  were  endeavoring  to  spread.  As  I  passed 
down  the  stairs  homeward,  he  put  his  arm  within  mine, 
and  said,  "  You  shall  never  need  to  ask  me  again  to 
share  that  platform."  It  was  the  instinct  of  his  nature, 
true  as  the  bravest  heart.  The  spot  for  him  was  where 
the  battle  was  hottest.  He  had  come,  as  half  the  clergy 
come, —  a  critic.  He  felt  it  was  not  his  place  ;  that  it 
was  to  grapple  with  the  tiger,  ajid  throttle  him.  And 
the  pledge  that  he  made  he  kept ;  for,  whether  here  or  in 
New  York,  as  his  reputation  grew,  when  that  lordly 
mammoth  of  the  press,  the  Tribune,  overgrown  in  its  in- 
dependence and  strength,  would  not  condescend  to  record 
a  word  that  Mr.  Garrison  or  I  could  utter,  but  bent  low 
before  the  most  thorough  scholarship  of  New  England, 
and  was  glad  to  win  its  way  to  the  confidence  of  the 
West  by  being  his  mouthpiece,  —  with  that  weapon  of 
influence  in  his  right  hand,  he  always  placed  himself  at 
our  side,  and  in  the  midst  of  us,  in  the  capital  State  of 
the  Empire. 

You  may  not  think  this  great  praise  ;  we  do.  Other 
men  have  brought  us  brave  hearts ;  other  men  have 
brought  us  keen-sighted  and  vigilant  intellects, —  but 
he  brought  us,  as  no  one  else  could,  the  loftiest  stature 
of  New  England  culture.  He  brought  us  a  disciplined 
intellect,  whose  statement  was  evidence,  and  whose 
affirmation  the  most  gifted  student  hesitated  long  be- 
fore he  ventured  to  doubt  or  to  contradict.  When  we 
had  nothing  but  our  characters,  nothing  but  our  repu- 
tation for  accuracy,  for  our  weapons,  the  man  who  could 
give  to  the  cause  of  the  slave  that  weapon  was  indeed 
one  of  its  ablest  and  foremost  champions. 


THEODORE    PARKER.  427 

Lord  Bacon  said  in  his  will,  "  I  leave  my  name  and 
memory  to  foreign  lands,  and  to  my  countrymen,  after 
some  time  be  passed"  No  more  fitting  words  could  be 
chosen,  if  the  modesty  of  the  friend  who  has  just  gone 
before  us  would  have  permitted  him  to  adopt  them  for 
himself.  To-day,  even  within  twenty-four  hours,  I 
have?  seen  symptoms  of  that  repentance  which  Johnson 
describes  :  — 

When  nations,  slowly  wise  and  meanly  just, 
To  buried  merit  raise  the  tardy  bust." 

The  men  who  held  their  garments  aside,  and  desired  to 
have  no  contact  with  Music  Hall,  are  beginning  to  show 
symptoms  that  they  will  be  glad,  when  the  world  doubts 
whether  they  have  any  life  left,  to  say,  "  Did  not  Theo- 
dore Parker  spring  from  our  bosom  ?  " 

Yes;  he  takes  his  place  —  his  serene  place  —  among 
those  few  to  whom  Americans  point  as  a  proof  that  the 
national  heart  is  still  healthy  and  alive.  Most  of  our 
statesmen,  most  of  our  politicians,  go  down  into  their 
graves,  and  we  cover  them  up  with  apologies  ;  we  walk 
with  reverent  and  filial  love  backward,  and  throw  the 
mantle  over  their  defects,  and  say,  "  Remember  the 
temptation  and  the  time  !  "  Now  and  then  one  —  now 
and  then  one  goes  up  silently,  and  yet  not  unannounced, 
like  the  stars  at  their  coming,  and  takes  his  place,  while 
all  eyes  follow  him  and  say,  "  Thank  God !  It  is  the 
promise  and  the  herald  !  It  is  the  nation  alive  at  its 
heart !  God  has  not  left  us  without  a  witness,  for  his 
children  have  been  among  us,  and  one  half  have  known 
them  by  love,  and  one  half  have  known  them  by  hate,  — 
equal  attestations  to  the  divine  life  that  has  passed 
through  our  streets." 

I  wish  I  could  say  anything  worthy  ;  but  he  should 
have  done  for  us,  with  the  words  that  never  failed  to  be 


428  THEODORE   PARKER. 

fitting,  with  that  heart  that  was  always  ready,  with 
that  eloquence  which  you  never  waited  for  and  were 
disappointed,  —  he  should  have  done  for  us  what  we 
vainly  try  to  do  for  him.  Farewell,  brave,  strong  friend 
and  helper ! 

"Sleep  in  peace  with  kindred  ashes 

Of  the  noble  and  the  true ; 
Hands  that  never  failed  their  country, 
Hearts  that  baseness  never  knew  !  " 


II. 


At  the  Memorial  Service  of  the  Twenty- Eighth  Congregational 
Society,  in  Music  Hall,  on  Sunday,  June  17,  I860. 

THE  lesson  of  this  desk  is  Truth  !  That  your  brave 
teacher  dared  to  speak,  and  no  more.  It  is  only 
two  or  three  times  in  our  lives  that  we  pause  in  telling  the 
whole  merit  of  a  friend,  from  fear  of  being  thought  flatter- 
ers. What  the  world  thinks  easily  done,  it  believes  ;  all 
beyond  is  put  down  to  fiction.  I  find  myself  hesitating 
to  speak  just  all  I  think  of  Theodore  Parker,  lest  those 
who  did  not  know  him  should  suppose  I  flatter,  and  thus 
I  mar  the  massive  simplicity  of  his  fame. 

Born  on  the  24th  of  August,  1810,  he  died  just  before 
finishing  his  fiftieth  year.  He  said  to  me,  years  ago, 
"  When  I  am  fifty,  I  will  leave  the  pulpit,  and  finish  the 
great  works  I  have  planned."  God  ordered  it  so !  He 
has  left  this  desk,  and  gone  there  to  finish  the  great 
works  that  he  planned  !  Some  speak  of  his  death  as 
early  ;  but  he  died  in  good  old  age,  if  we  judge  him  by 


THEODORE   PARKER.  429 

his  work,  —  full  of  labors,  if  not  of  years,  a  long  life 
crowded  into  a  few  years ;  as  Bacon  says,  u  Old  in  hours, 
for  he  lost  no  time."  Truly,  he  lost  not  an  hour,  from  the 
early  years,  —  when  in  his  sweet,  plain  phrase,  he  tells 
us,  "  his  father  let  the  baby  pick  up  chips,  drive  the  cows 
to  pasture,  and  carry  nubs  of  corn  to  the  oxen,"  —  far 
on  to  the  closing  moment  when,  faint  and  dying,  he  sent 
us  his  blessing  and  brave  counsel  last  November,  dated 
fitly  from  Rome.  God  granted  him  life  long  enough  to 
see  of  the  labor  of  his  hands.  He  planted  broadly,  and 
lived  to  gather  a  rich,  ripe  harvest.  His  life,  too,  was 
an  harmonious  whole, — 

"...  when  brought 
Among  the  tasks  of  real  life,  he  wrought 
Upon  the  plan  that  pleased  his  childish  thought." 

The  very  last  page  those  busy  fingers  ever  wrote,  tells 
the  child's  story,  than  which,  he  says,  "  no  event  in  my 
life  has  made  so  deep  and  lasting  an  impression  on 
me.  ...  A  little  boy  in  petticoats,  in  my  fourth  year, 
my  father  sent  me  from  the  field  home."  A  spotted 
tortoise,  in  shallow  water  at  the  foot  of  a  rhodora, 
caught  his  sight,  and  he  lifted  his  stick  to  strike  it, 
when  "  a  voice  within  said,  '  It  is  wrong.'  I  stood  with 
lifted  stick,  in  wonder  at  the  new  emotion,  till  rhodora 
and  tortoise  vanished  from  my  sight.  I  hastened  home, 
and  asked  my  mother  what  it  was  that  told  me  it  was 
wrong.  Wiping  a  tear  with  her  apron,  and  taking  me 
in  her  arms,  she  said,  '  Some  men  call  it  conscience  ; 
but  I  prefer  to  call  it  the  voice  of  God  in  the  soul  of 
man.  If  you  listen  to  it  and  obey  it,  then  it  will  speak 
clearer  and  clearer,  and  always  guide  you  right.  But 
if  you  turn  a  deaf  ear  or  disobey,  then  it  will  fade  out, 
little  by  little,  and  leave  you  in  the  dark  and  without  a 
guide  ! '  Out  of  that  tearful  mother's  arms  grew  your 


430  THEODORE   PARKER. 

pulpit.  Here  in  words,  every  day  in  the  streets  by  deeds, 
during  a  hard  life,  he  repeated  and  obeyed  her  counsel. 

Of  that  pulpit,  its  theology,  and  its  treatment  by 
Unitarian  divines,  manly  and  Christian  lips  spoke  to  us 
two  weeks  ago.  It  is  not  for  me,  even  if  there  were 
need,  to  touch  on  it.  Born  in  that  faith,  and  nurtured 
in  similar  maxims  of  the  utmost  liberty  and  the  duty 
of  individual  investigation  and  thought,  I  used  it  to  enter 
other  paths.  Mine  is  the  old  faith  of  New  England.  On 
those  points  he  and  I  rarely  talked.  What  he  thought, 
I  hardly  know.  For  myself,  standing  beneath  the  Gos- 
pel rule  of  "judging  men  by  their  fruits,"  I  should 
have  felt  stronger  in  defending  my  own  faith,  could  I 
have  pointed  to  any  preacher  of  it  who  as  gently  judged 
and  as  truly  loved  his  fellowmen.  As  to  doctrines,  we 
both  knew  that  "  the  whole  of  truth  can  never  do  harm 
to  the  whole  of  virtue ; "  that,  of  course,  a  man's  con- 
ception of  truth  is  only  his  opinion,  and  not,  necessarily, 
absolute  truth.  But  it  is  always  safe  and  wise  for 
honest  and  earnest  men  to  seek  for  truth  everywhere 
and  at  all  hazards.  The  results,  if  not  wholly  and  only 
good,  are  yet  the  best  things  within  our  reach. 

The  lesson  of  Theodore  Parker's  preaching  was  love. 
Let  me  read  for  you  a  sonnet  still  among  his  papers : 

"  O  Brother  !  who  for  us  didst  meekly  wear 
The  Crown  of  Thorns  about  thy  radiant  brow,  — 
What  Gospel  from  the  Father  didst  thou  bear, 
Our  hearts  to  cheer,  making  us  happy  now  ? 
'  'T  is  this  alone,'  the  immortal  Saviour  cries  — 
'To  fill  thy  heart  with  ever  active  love,  — 
Love  for  the  wicked  as  in  sin  he  lies, 
Love  for  thy  brother  here,  thy  God  above.  — 
And  thus  to  find  thy  earthly,  heavenly  prize. 
Fear  nothing  ill ;  't  will  vanish  in  its  day  ; 
Live  for  the  good,  taking  the  ill  thou  must ; 
Toil  with  thy  might,  with  manly  labor  pray ; 
Living  and  loving,  learn  thy  God  to  trust, 
And  He  will  shed  upon  thy  soul  the  blessings  of  the  just.' " 


THEODORE   PARKER.  431 

Standing  in  the  old  ways,  I  cannot  but  suspect  these 
Unitarian  ]  ml  pits  of  some  latent  and  cowardly  distrust 
of  their  own  creed,  when  I  see  that  if  one  comes  from 
them  to  our  Orthodox  ranks,  and  believes  a  great  deal 
more  than  they  do,  he  is  treated  with  reverend  respect; 
but  let  him  go  out  on  the  other  side,  and  believe  a  very 
little  less,  and  the  whole  startled  body  join  in  begging 
the  world  not  to  think  them  naturally  the  parents  of 
such  horrible  and  dangerous  heresy. 

But  there  is  one  thing  every  man  may  say  of  this 
pulpit,  —  it  was  a  live  reality  and  no  sham.  Whether 
tearing  theological  idols  to  pieces  at  West  Roxbury,  or 
here  battling  with  the  every-day  evils  of  the  streets,  it 
was  ever  a  live  voice,  and  no  mechanical  or  parrot-tune ; 
ever  fresh  from  the  heart  of  God,  as  these  flowers,  these 
lilies,  the  last  flower  over  which,  when  eyesight  failed 
him,  with  his  old  gesture  he  passed  his  loving  hand,  and 
said,  "  How  sweet !  "  As  in  that  story  he  loved  so  much 
to  tell  of  Michael  Angelo,  when  in  the  Roman  palace 
Raphael  was  drawing  his  figures  too  small,  Angelo 
sketched  a  colossal  head  of  fit  proportions,  and  taught 
Raphael  his  fault,  so  Parker  criticised  these  other  pul- 
pits, not  so  much  by  censure  as  by  creation  —  by  a  pulpit, 
proportioned  to  the  hour,  broad  as  humanity,  frank  as 
truth,  stern  as  justice,  and  loving  as  Christ. 

Here  is  the  place  to  judge  him.  In  St.  Paul's  Cathe- 
dral, the  epitaph  says,  if  you  would  know  the  genius  of 
Christopher  Wren,  "  look  around."  Do  you  ask  proof 
how  full  were  the  hands,  how  large  the  heart,  how  many- 
sided  the  brain  of  your  teacher  ?—  listen,  and  you  will  hear 
it  in  the  glad,  triumphant  certainty  of  your  enemies  that 
you  must  close  these  doors,  since  his  place  can  never  be 
filled !  Do  you  ask  proof  of  his  efficient  labor  and  the 
good  soil  into  which  that  seed  fell  ? —  gladden  your  eyes  by 
looking  back  and  seeing  for  how  many  months  the  im- 


432  THEODORE    PARKER. 

pulse  his  vigorous  hand  gave  you  has  sufficed,  spite  of 
boding  prophecy,  to  keep  these  doors  open  !  Yes  ;  he  has 
left  those  accustomed  to  use  weapons,  and  not  merely  to 
hold  up  his  hands.  And  not  only  among  yourselves ; 
from  another  city  I  received  a  letter  full  of  deep  feeling, 
and  the  writer,  an  Orthodox  church-member,  says  :  — 

"  I  was  a  convert  to  Theodore  Parker  before  I  was  a  con- 
vert to .  If  there  is  anything  of  value  in  the  work 

I  am  doing  to-day,  it  may  in  an  important  sense  be  said  to 
have  had  its  root  in  Parkers  heresy,  —  I  mean  the  habit  with- 
out which  Orthodoxy  stands  emasculated  and  good  for  nothing, 
of  independently  passing  on  the  empty  and  rotten  pretensions 
of  churches  and  churchmen,  which  I  learned  earliest  and  more 
than  from  an}'  other  from  Theodore  Parker.  He  has  nry  love, 
my  respect,  my  admiration." 

Yes,  his  diocese  is  broader  than  Massachusetts;  his 
influence  extends  very  far  outside  these  walls.  Every 
pulpit  in  Boston  is  freer  and  more  real  to-day  because  of 
the  existence  of  this.  The  fan  of  his  example  scattered 
the  chaff  of  a  hundred  sapless  years.  Our  whole  city  is 
fresher  to-day  because  of  him.  The  most  sickly  and 
timid  soul  under  yonder  steeple,  hide-bound  in  days  and 
forms  and  beggarly  Jewish  elements,  little  dreams  how  ten 
times  worse  and  narrower  it  was  before  this  sun  warmed 
the  general  atmosphere  around.  As  was  said  of  Burke's 
unsuccessful  impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings,  "  never 
was  the  great  object  of  punishment,  the  prevention  of 
crime,  more  completely  obtained.  Hastings  was  ac- 
quitted ;  but  tyranny  and  injustice  were  condemned 
wherever  English  was  spoken,"  so  we  may  say  of  Boston 
and  Theodore  Parker.  Grant  that  few  adopted  his  ex- 
treme theological  views,  that  not  many  sympathized  in 
his  politics,  still,  that  Boston  is  nobler,  purer,  braver, 
more  loving,  more  Christian  to-day,  is  due  more  to  him 


THEODORE    PARKER.  433 

than  to  all  the  pulpits  thai,  vex  her  Sabbath  air.  He 
raised  the  level  of  sermons  intellectually  and  morally. 
Other  preachers  were  compelled  to  grow  in  manly 
thought  and  Christian  morals  in  very  self-defence.  The 
droning  routine  of  dead  metaphysics  or  dainty  morals 
was  gone.  As  Christ  preached  of  the  fall  of  the  tower 
of  Siloam  the  week  before  and  what  men  said  of  it 
in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  so  Parker  rung  through 
our  startled  city  the  news  of  some  fresh  crime  against 
humanity,  —  some  slave-hunt  or  wicked  court  or  prosti- 
tuted official,  — till  frightened  audiences  actually  took 
bond  of  their  new  clergymen  that  they  should  not  be 
tormented  before  their  time ! 

Men  say  he  erred  on  that  great  question  of  our  age,  — 
the  place  due  to  the  Bible.  Perhaps  so.  But  William 
Crafts  —  one  of  the  bravest  men  who  ever  fled  from  our 
vulture  to  Victoria  —  writes  to  a  friend :  "  When  the 
slave-hunters  were  on  our  track,  and  no  other  minister, 
except  yourself,  came  to  direct  our  attention  to  the  God 
of  the  oppressed,  Mr.  Parker  came  with  his  wise  counsel, 
and  told  us  where  and  how  to  go  ;  gave  us  money.  But 
that  was  not  all :  he  gave  me  a  weapon  to  protect  our 
liberties,  and  a  Bible  to  guide  our  souls.  I  have  that 
Bible  now,  and  shall  ever  prize  it  most  highly." 

How  direct  and  frank  his  style, — just  level  to  the 
nation's  ear.  No  man  ever  needed  to  read  any  one  of 
his  sentences  twice  to  catch  its  meaning.  None  sus- 
pected that  he  thought  other  than  he  said,  or  more  than 
he  confessed. 

Like  all  such  men,  he  grew  daily,  —  never  too  old  to 
learn.  Mark  how  closer  to  actual  life,  how  much  bolder 
in  reform,  are  all  his  later  sermons,  especially  since  he 
came  to  the  city  ;  every  year  a  step  - 

"...  forward,  persevering  to  the  last, 
From  well  to  better,  daily  self-surpassed." 
28 


434  THEODORE   PARKER. 

There  are  men  whom  we  measure  by  their  times, — 
content,  and  expecting  to  find  them  subdued  to  what  they 
work  in.  They  are  the  chameleons  of  circumstance ; 
they  are  ^Eoliari  harps,  toned  by  the  breeze  that  sweeps 
over  them.  There  are  others  who  serve  as  guide-posts 
and  land-marks  ;  we  measure  their  times  by  them.  Such 
was  Theodore  Parker.  Hereafter  the  critic  will  use  him 
as  a  mete-wand  to  measure  the  heart  and  civilization  of 
Boston.  Like  the  Englishman,  a  year  or  two  ago,  who 
suspected  our  great  historian  could  riot  move  in  the  best 
circles  of  the  city  when  it  dropped  out  that  he  did  not 
know  Theodore  Parker,  distant  men  gauge  us  by  our 
toleration  and  recognition  of  him.  Such  men  are  our 
Nilometers  ;  the  harvest  of  the  future  is  according  to 
the  height  that  the  flood  of  our  love  rises  round  them. 
Who  cares  now  that  Harvard  vouchsafed  him  no  honors  ! 
But  history  will  save  the  fact  to  measure  the  calculating 
and  prudent  bigotry  of  our  times. 

Some  speak  of  him  only  as  a  bitter  critic  and  harsh 
prophet.  Pulpits  and  journals  shelter  their  plain  speech 
in  mentioning  him  under  the  example  of  what  they  call 
his  "  unsparing  candor."  Do  they  feel  that  the  strange- 
ness of  their  speech,  their  unusual  frankness,  needs 
apology  and  example  !  But  he  was  far  other  than  a  bit- 
ter critic ;  though  thank  God  for  every  drop  of  that 
bitterness  that  came  like  a  wholesome  rebuke  on  the 
dead,  saltless  sea  of  American  life !  Thank  God  for 
every  indignant  protest,  for  every  Christian  admonition 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  breathed  through  those  manly  lips ! 
But  if  he  deserved  any  single  word,  it  was  "  generous." 
Vir  generosus  is  the  description  that  leaps  to  the  lips  of 
every  scholar.  He  was  generous  of  money.  Born  on  a 
New  England  farm,  in  those  days  when  small  incomings 
made  every  dollar  a  matter  of  importance,  he  no  sooner 
had  command  of  wealth  than  he  lived  with  open  hands. 


THEODORE   PARKER.  435 

Not  even  the  darling  ambition  of  a  great  library  ever 
tempted  him  to  close  his  ear  to  need.  Go  to  Venice  or 
Vienna,  to  Frankfort  or  to  Paris,  and  ask  the  refugees 
who  have  gone  back,  —  when  here  friendless  exiles  but  for 
him,  —  under  whose  roof  they  felt  most  at  home  !  One  of 
our  oldest  and  best  teachers  writes  me  that,  telling  him 
once  in  the  cars  of  a  young  lad  of  rare  mathematical 
genius  who  could  read  Laplace,  but  whom  narrow  means 
debarred  from  the  university,  "  Let  him  enter,"  said 
Theodore  Parker ;  "  I  will  pay  his  bills." 

No  sect,  no  special  study,  no  one  idea  bounded  his 
sympathy;  but  he  was  generous  in  judgment  where  a 
common  man  would  have  found  it  hard  to  be  so.  Though 
he  does  not "  go  down  to  dust  without  his  fame,"  though 
Oxford  and  Germany  sent  him  messages  of  sympathy, 
still  no  word  of  approbation  from  the  old  grand  names  of 
our  land,  no  honors  from  university  or  learned  academy, 
greeted  his  brave,  diligent,  earnest  life.  Men  can  confess 
that  they  voted  against  his  admission  to  scientific  bodies 
for  his  ideas,  feeling  all  the  while  that  his  brain  could 
furnish  half  the  academy ;  and  yet,  thus  ostracised,  he 
was  the  most  generous,  more  than  just,  interpreter  of  the 
motives  of  those  about  him,  and  looked  on  while  others 
reaped  where  he  sowed,  with  most  generous  joy  in  their 
success.  Patiently  analyzing  character,  and  masterly  in 
marshalling  facts,  he  stamped  with  generous  justice  the 
world's  final  judgment  of  Webster,  and  now  that  the 
soreness  of  battle  is  over,  friend  and  foe  allow  it. 

He  was  generous  of  labor,  —  books  never  served  to 
excuse  him  from  any,  the  humblest  work.  Though 
"  hiving  wisdom  with  each  studious  year,"  and  passion- 
ately devoted  to  his  desk,  as  truly  as  was  said  of  Milton, 
"  The  lowliest  duties  on  himself  he  laid."  What  drudg- 
ery of  the  street  did  that  scholarly  hand  ever  refuse  ? 
Who  so  often  and  so  constant  as  he  in  the  trenches, 


436  THEODORE   PARKER. 

when  a  slave  case  made  our  city  a  camp  ?  Loving 
books,  he  had  no  jot  of  a  scholar's  indolence  or  timidity, 
hut  joined  hands  with  labor  everywhere,  Erasmus 
would  have  found  him  good  company,  and  Melanchthon 
got  brave  help  over  a  Greek  manuscript ;  but  the  likeliest 
place  to  have  found  him  in  that  age  would  have  been 
at  Zwingle's  side,  on  the  battlefield,  pierced  with  a 
score  of  fanatic  spears.  For  above  all  things,  he  was 
terribly  in  earnest.  If  I  sought  to  paint  him  in  one 
word,  I  should  say  he  was  always  in  earnest. 

I  spoke  once  of  his  diligence,  and  we  call  him  tire- 
less, unflagging,  unresting.  But  they  are  commonplace 
words,  and  poorly  describe  him.  What  we  usually  call 
diligence  in  educated  men  does  not  outdo,  does  not 
equal  the  day-laborer  in  ceaselessness  of  toil.  No 
scholar,  not  even  the  busiest,  but  loiters  out  from  his 
weary  books,  and  feels  shamed  by  the  hodman  or  the 
plough-boy.  The  society  and  amusements  of  easy  life 
eat  up  and  beguile  one  half  our  time.  Those  on  whose 
lips  and  motions  hang  crowds  of  busy  idlers  submit  to 
life-long  discipline,  almost  every  hour  a  lesson.  Those 
on  whose  tones  float  the  most  precious  truth  disdain  an 
effort.  The  table  you  write  on  is  the  fruit  of  more  toil- 
some and  thorough  discipline  than  the  brain  of  most 
who  deem  themselves  scholars  ever  knew.  Let  us  not 
cheat  ourselves  with  words.  But  no  poor  and  greedy 
mechanic,  no  farm  tenant  "  on  shares,"  ever  distanced 
this  unresting  brain.  He  brought  into  his  study  that 
conscientious,  loving  industry  which  six  generations  had 
handed  down  to  him  on  the  hard  soil  of  Massachusetts. 
He  loved  work,  and  I  doubt  if  any  workman  in  our 
empire  equalled  him  in  thoroughness  of  preparation. 
Before  he  wrote  his  review  of  Prescott,  he  went  con- 
scientiously through  all  the  printed  histories  of  that 
period  in  three  or  four  tongues.  Before  he  ventured  to 


THEODORE    PARKER.  437 

paint  for  you  the  portrait  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  he 
read  every  line  Adams  ever  printed,  and  all  the  attacks 
upon  him  that  could  be  found  in  public  or  private 
collections. 

Fortunate  man  !  he  lived  long  enough^  to  see  the  eyes 
of  the  whole  nation  turned  toward  him  as  to  a  trusted 
teacher.  Fortunate,  indeed,  in  a  life  so  noble,  that  even 
what  was  scorned  from  the  pulpit,  will  surely  become 
oracular  from  the  tomb  !  Thrice  fortunate,  if  he  loved 
fame  and  future  influence,  that  the  leaves  which  bear 
his  thoughts  to  posterity  are  not  freighted  with  words 
penned  by  sickly  ambition  or  wrung  from  hunger, 
but  with  earnest  thoughts  on  dangers  that  make  the 
ground  tremble  under  our  feet,  and  the  heavens  black 
over  our  head,  —  the  only  literature  sure  to  live.  Am- 
bition says,  "  I  will  write,  and  be  famous."  It  is  only 
a  dainty  tournament,  a  sham  fight,  forgotten  when  the 
smoke  clears  away.  Real  books  are  like  Yorktown  or 
Waterloo,  whose  cannon  shook  continents  at  the  mo- 
ment, and  echo  down  the  centuries.  Through  such 
channels  Parker  poured  his  thoughts. 

And  true  hearts  leaped  to  his  side.  No  man's  brain 
ever  made  him  warmer  friends ;  no  man's  heart  ever 
held  them  firmer.  He  loved  to  speak  of  how  many 
hands  he  had,  in  every  city,  in  every  land,  ready  to 
work  for  him.  With  royal  serenity  he  levied  on  all. 
Vassal  hearts  multiplied  the  great  chief's  powers.  And 
at  home  the  gentlest  and  deepest  love,  saintly,  unequalled 
devotion,  made  every  hour  sunny,  held  off  every  care, 
and  left  him  double  liberty  to  work.  God  comfort  that 
widowed  heart! 

Judge  him  by  his  friends.  No  man  suffered  any- 
where who  did  not  feel  sure  of  his  sympathy.  In  sick 
chambers,  and  by  the  side  of  suffering  humanity,  he 
kept  his  heart  soft  and  young.  No  man  lifted  a  hand 


438  THEODORE   PARKER. 

anywhere  for  truth  and  right  who  did  not  look  on 
Theodore  Parker  as  his  fellow-laborer.  When  men 
hoped  for  the  future,  this  desk  was  one  stone  on  which 
they  planted  their  feet.  Where  more  frequent  than 
around  his  bo^fd  would  you  find  men  familiar  with 
Europe's  dungeons  and  the  mobs  of  our  own  streets? 
Wherever  the  fugitive  slave  might  worship,  here  was 
his  Gibraltar.  Over  his  mantel,  however  scantily  fur- 
nished, in  this  city  or  elsewhere,  you  were  sure  to  find  a 
picture  of  Parker. 

But  he  is  gone !  So  certain  was  he  of  his  death  that, 
in  the  still  watches  of  the  Italian  night,  he  comforted 
the  sickening  hopes  of  those  about  him  by  whispering,  — 

"  I  hear  a  voice  you  cannot  hear, 
Which  says  I  must  not  stay ; 
I  see  a  hand  you  cannot  see, 
Which  beckons  me  away." 

But  where  shall  we  stop  ?  This  empty  desk !  You 
may  fill  it,  but  where  is  lie  who  called  it  into  being  ? 
Who  shall  make  it  so  emphatically  the  symbol  of  free 
thought  ?  To  have  stood  here  was,  for  most  men,  suffi- 
cient credential.  Here  the  young  knight  earned  his 
spurs.  Around  it  has  swelled  and  tossed  the  battle  of 
Christian  liberty.  The  debate  whether  Theodore  Parker 
should  speak  in  one  place  or  preach  in  another,  has  been 
one  of  God's  chief  methods  of  teaching  this  land  the 
lesson  of  what  bigots  style  toleration,  and  freemen  better 
call  Christian  liberty. 

He  has  passed  on;  we  linger.  That  other  world 
grows  more  real  to  us  as  friend  after  friend  enters  it. 
Soon  more  are  there  than  on  this  side ;  soon  our  hearts 
are  more  than  half  there.  God  tenderly  sunders  the 
few  ties  that  still  bind  us.  So  live  that  when  called 
to  join  that  other  assembly,  we  shall  feel  we  are  only 


THEODORE   PARKER.  439 

passing  from  an  apprenticeship  of  thought  and  toil  to 
broader  fields  and  a  higher  teacher  above. 

The  blessings  of  the  poor  are  his  laurels.  Say  that 
his  words  won  doubt  and  murmur  to  trust  in  a  loving 
God,  —  let  that  be  his  record!  Say  that  to  the  hated 
and  friendless,  he  was  shield  and  buckler, — let  that  be 
his  epitaph !  The  glory  of  children  is  the  fathers. 
When  you  voted  "  that  Theodore  Parker  should  be 
heard  in  Boston,"  God  honored  you.  Well  have  you 
kept  the  pledge.  In  much  labor  and  with  many  sacri- 
fices he  has  laid  the  corner-stone.  His  work  is  ended 
here.  God  calls  you  to  put  on  the  top-stone.  Let  fear- 
less lips  and  Christian  lives  be  his  monument ! 


FRANCIS  JACKSOK 


At  the  funeral  services  at  Mr.  Jackson's    late  residence,  Hollis 
Street,  Boston,  November  18,  1861. 

HERE  lies  the  body  of  one  of  whom  it  may  be  justly 
said,  he  was  the  best  fruit  of  New  England  insti- 
tutions. If  we  had  been  set  to  choose  a  specimen  of 
what  the  best  New  England  ideas  and  training  could  do, 
there  are  few  men  we  should  have  selected  before  him. 
Broad  views,  long  foresight,  tireless  industry,  great 
force,  serene  faith  in  principles,  parent  of  constant 
effort  to  reduce  them  to  practice  ;  contempt  of  mere 
wealth,  that  led  him  in  middle  life  to  give  up  getting, 
and  devote  his  whole  strength  to  ideas  and  the  welfare 
of  the  race  ;  entirely  unselfish,  perfectly  just ;  thrifty, 
that  he  might  have  to  give  ;  fearing  not  the  face  of 
man ;  tolerant  of  other  men's  doubts  and  fears ; 
tender  and  loving,  —  are  not  these  the  traits  that  have 
given  us  the  inheritance  we  value  ?  None  will  deny 
they  were  eminently  his. 

My  only  hesitation  in  describing  him  is  lest  I  be 
thought  to  flatter.  What  men  have  themselves  seen, 
they  believe  ;  all  further  is  set  down  to  the  blind  par- 
tiality of  friendship.  Few  have  been  privileged  to  know 
ii)4en  like  Francis  Jackson.  To  such  men,  in  fulness  of 
^ears,  there  is  no  death.  There  seems  no  place  for 
tears  here.  Our  friend  has  only  laid  down  this  body,  — 
the  worn  tool  God  lent  him,  —  and  passed  on  to  nearer 


FRANCIS   JACKSON.  441 

service  and  a  higher  sphere.  He  had  fought  a  good 
fight,  and  certainly  finished  his  work  here. 

We  have  known  him  so  long,  looked  up  to  him  for  so 
many  years,  trusted  his  judgment,  leaned  on  his  friend- 
ship, counted  on  his  strength  so  constantly,  that,  like  a 
child  losing  its  parent,  we  seem  left  without  some  wonted 
shelter  under  the  high,  cold  heaven,  —  something  we 
nestled  under  is  gone. 

I  said  he  was  all  that  our  institutions  ought  to  breed, 
—  yes,  having  regard  to  his  plans  and  purpose  of  life, 
he  was  one  of  the  most  thoroughly  educated  men  I  ever 
knew.  All  he  professed  and  needed  to  know,  he  knew 
thoroughly.  Though  enjoying  but  scanty  opportunities 
of  education  in  early  life,  he  was  thoroughly  dowered  by 
patient  training,  carefully  gathered  information,  and 
most  mature  thought ;  he  was  in  every  sense  a  wise 
man,  and  wise  men  valued  him.  My  friend  Mr.  Gar- 
rison has  quoted  Theodore  Parker.  All  of  you  who 
knew  Theodore  Parker  intimately  will  recollect  that 
when  he  wished  to  illustrate  cool  courage,  indomitable 
perseverance,  sound  sense,  rare  practical  ability,  utter 
disinterestedness,  and  spotless  integrity,  he  named 
Francis  Jackson ;  and  when  in  moments  of  difficulty  he 
needed  such  qualities  in  a  stanch  friend,  he  found  them 
in  Francis  Jackson. 

Every  character  has  some  pervading  quality,  some 
key-note ;  our  friend's,  I  think,  was  decision,  serene 
self-reliance,  and  perseverance.  He  was  the  kind  of  man 
you  involuntarily  called  to  mind  when  men  spoke  of 
"  one  on  God's  side  being  a  majority."  Such  a  one 
sufficed  to  outweigh  masses,  and  outlive  the  opposition 
of  long  years.  Francis  Jackson's  will  did  not  seem  a 
mere  human  will  or  purpose  ;  it  reminded  you  of  some 
law  or  force  of  Nature, —  like  gravity  or  the  weight  of 
the  globe,  —  hopeless  to  resist  it.  I  cannot  describe  it 


442  FRANCIS    JACKSON. 

better  than  by  quoting  some  sentences  of  John  Foster's 
sketch  of  Howard,  —  you  will  see  how  closely  they  fit 
our  friend,  — 

u  The  energy  of  his  determination  was  so  great,  that  if 
instead  of  being  habitual,  it  had  been  shown  only  for  a  short 
time  on  particular  occasions,  it  would  have  appeared  a  ve- 
hement impetuosity ;  but  by  being  uninterrupted,  it  had  an 
equability  of  manner  which  scarcely  appeared  to  exceed  the 
tone  of  a  calm  constancy,  it  was  so  totally  the  reverse  of 
an3*thing  like  turbulence  or  agitation.  It  was  the  calmness 
of  an  intensity  kept  uniform  by  the  nature  of  the  human  mind 
forbidding  it  to  be  more,  and  by  the  character  of  the  in- 
dividual forbidding  it  to  be  less.  .  .  . 

"The  moment  of  finishing  his  plans  in  deliberation,  and 
commencing  them  in  action,  was  the  same.  I  wonder  what 
must  have  been  the  amount  of  that  bribe  in  emolument  or 
pleasure,  that  would  have  detained  him  a  week  after  their 
final  adjustment.  The  law  which  carries  water  down  a  de- 
clivity was  not  more  unconquerable  and  invariable  than  the 
determination  of  his  feelings  toward  the  main  object.  .  .  . 
There  was  an  inconceivable  severit}'  of  conviction  that  he 
had  one  thing  to  do,  and  that  he  who  would  do  some  great 
thing  in  this  short  life,  must  apply  himself  to  the  work  with 
such  a  concentration  of  his  forces  as  to  idle  spectators,  who 
live  onl}'  to  amuse  themselves,  looks  like  insanit}'.  .  .  . 

"As  his  method  referred  everything  he  did  and  thought 
to  the  same  end,  and  his  exertion  did  not  relax  for  a  mo- 
ment, he  made  the  trial,  so  seldom  made,  what  is  the  utmost 
effect  which  may  be  granted  to  the  last  possible  efforts  of  a 
human  agent ;  and  therefore  what  he  did  not  accomplish,  he 
might  conclude  to  be  placed  be3*ond  the  sphere  of  mortal 
activit}',  and  calmly  leave  to  the  immediate  disposal  of 
Omnipotence." 

Add  to  this  quality  of  decision  his  other  trait,  —  tire- 
less activity, —  and  it  explains  his  life.  Indeed,  he 
needs  no  words  of  ours  :  "  His  own  right  hand  has 


FRANCIS   JACKSON.  443 

carved  his  epitaph."  As  Mr.  Garrison  has  told  us,  he 
withdrew  long  ago  from  office,  —  stood  outside  of  the 
political  machine.  But  when  history  records  the  strug- 
gling birth  of  those  changes  and  ideas  which  make  our 
epoch  and  city  famous,  whose  name  will  she  put  before 
his  ?  And  God  has  graciously  permitted  him  to  see  of 
the  labor  of  his  hands.  These  walls  said  to  the  wave 
that  beat  down  all  law  and  authority  in  Boston,  in  1835, 
"  Thus  far,  no  farther."  That  word  of  rebuke  was  the 
first  faint  sighing  of  the  tempest  that  now  sweeps  over 
the  continent,  u  scourging  before  it  the  lazy  elements 
which  had  long  stagnated  into  pestilence."  Some  men 
would  say  he  flung  away  the  honors  of  life.  No  ;  who 
has  reaped  so  many  ?  The  roar  of  the  streets,  the  petty 
inefficiency  of  mayors,  never  turned  him  one  hair's- 
breadth  from  his  path,  or  balked  him  of  his  purpose. 
Brave,  calm,  tirelessly  at  work,  he  outlived  mayors  and 
governors,  —  the  mere  drift-wood  of  this  Niagara,  —  and 
wrote  his  will  on  the  statute-books  of  States. 

Three  years  ago  he  brought  me  five  thousand  dollars, 
to  be  used  in  securing  the  rights  of  women.  The  only 
charge  he  laid  on  me  was  to  keep  the  name  of  the 
donor  secret  until  what  has  now  happened,  —  his  death. 
Already  that  fund  has  essentially  changed  the  statute- 
book  of  the  Empire  State'J  altered  materially  the  laws 
of  two  other  Commonwealths,  and  planted  the  seed  of 
radical  reform  in  the  young  sovereignty  of  Kansas. 
This  unseen  hand  moved  the  lever  which,  afar  off,  lifts 
the  burdens  of  one  half  the  people  of  great  States.  And 
you  all  know  how  every  man,  friend  or  foe,  confidently 
expected  to  see  his  calm  brow  on  every  platform  which 
advocated  a  humane  and  an  unpopular  idea.  I  remem- 
ber, years  ago,  at  the  very  first  meeting  ever  held  in  this 
city  to  abolish  the  use  of  the  whip  in  the  navy,  a  timidly 
conservative  merchant  refused  to  attend,  saying,  "  Why, 


-         V        Vfc  V   -  [ 


444  FRANCIS   JACKSON. 

I  know  whom  I  shall  see  there,  —  just  Francis  Jackson, 
of  course,  and  his  set." 

But  he  was  not  only  a  reformer,  nor  wholly  absorbed 
in  what  narrow  men  call  useful.  Our  broad  city  avenue 
to  Roxbury  is  half  hid  by  noble  trees,  because  thirty 
years  ago  he,  a  member  of  the  city  government,  saw  to 
it,  unaided  at  first,  that  they  were  planted.  And  he 
found  time  to  save  for  history  a  sketch  of  his  native 
town,  —  a  volume  the  result  of  great  labor,  and  which 
ranks  among  the  best  of  our  town  histories. 

Rarest  of  all,  this  pitiless  toiler  in  constant  work, 
this  tremendous  energy  of  purpose,  was  wholly  unsavored 
with  arrogance.  He  was  eminently  tolerant.  It  was  not 
only  that  his  perfect  justice  made  allowance,  —  no,  his 
ready  sympathy  helped  to  give  fair,  full  weight  to  all 
that  should  excuse  or  make  us  patient  with  others. 
Indeed,  his  was  that  very,  very  rare  mixture,  —  iron  will 
and  a  woman's  tenderness,  —  so  seldom  found  in  our 
race.  Those  who  saw  him  only  at  work  little  knew 
how  keenly  he  felt,  and  how  highly  he  valued,  the  kind 
words  and  tender  messages  of  those  he  loved.  He  not 
only  served  the  needy  and  the  fugitive  slave,  but  his 
genial  sympathy  was  as  precious  a  gift  as  the  shelter 
of  this  roof  or  the  liberal  alms  he  was  sure  to  bestow. 
Some  men  are  only  modest  from  indifference,  and  the 
energy  of  some  is  only  ambition  in  a  mask.  Mr.  Jack- 
son's modesty  had  no  taint  of  indolence ;  his  enterprise 
was  no  cloak  for  ambition. 

Highest  of  all,  he  was  emphatically  an  honest  man,  in 
the  full,  sublime  sense  of  those  common  words.  "  Bos- 
ton," as  the  Tribune  says,  "  has  lost  her  honestest  man." 
If  I  speak  again  of  the  opposition  he  encountered,  it  is 
not  because  he  cared  for  it.  He  took  fortune's  buffets 
and  rewards  with  equal  thanks, — with  a  serene  indiffer- 
ence. But  it  is  just  to  him  to  consider  that  malignant 


FRANCIS   JACKSON.  445 

opposition  in  another  light.  The  pitiless  storm  of  public 
hate  beat  upon  him  for  thirty  years.  Malice  —  personal, 
political,  religious  —  watched  his  every  act,  dogged  his 
every  step,  and  yet  no  breath  of  suspicion  ever  touched 
his  character.  Out  of  that  ordeal  he  comes  with  no 
smell  of  fire  on  his  garments ;  the  boldest  malice  never 
gathered  courage  to  invent  an  accusation.  Son,  brother, 
husband,  father,  neighbor,  friend,  reformer,  in  private 
life,  in  business,  or  holding  office,  no  man  ever  suspected 
him  of  anything  but  the  bravery  of  holding  opinions 
which  all  hated,  none  could  confute,  and  of  acting  them 
out  at  the  risk  of  property  and  life,  and  the  actual 
sacrifice  of  all  common  men  love.  How  few  have  such 
an  epitaph  !  We  who  knew  him,  when  we  read  of  Hamp- 
den  resisting  ship-money,  or  Sidney  going  to  the  block, 
feel  that  we  have  walked  and  lived  with  their  fellow. 
Scholars  watched  him,  and  thought  of  Plutarch.  Narrow 
sectarians  scrutinized  him,  and  wondered  how  one  lack- 
ing their  shibboleth  wore  so  naturally  graces  they  only 
prayed  for.  Active,  stanch  friend,  wise  counsellor,  lib- 
eral hand,  serene  worker, — like  the  stars, "  without  haste, 
without  rest ! "  Let  us  thank  God  for  the  sight,  for  the 
example !  He  would  tell  us  to  spare  our  words,  saying, 
he  had  only  tried  to  use  his  powers  honestly.  His  best 
praise  is  our  following  his  example,  and  each  fearlessly 
obeying  his  own  conscience,  and  doing  with  his  might 
whatever  his  hand  finds  to  do  for  his  fellowman.  Let 
us  so  do  him  honor;  and  as  the  great  Englishman  said 
of  his  friend  :  "  There  's  none  to  make  his  place  ,good,— 
let  us  go  to  the  next  best,"  so  of  thee,  dear  comrade  and 
leader  of  many  years,  thy  place  is  sacred  forever  to  thy 
memory !  We  go  to  the  next  best,  till  God  gives  us  to 
see  thee  once  again,  face  to  face  ! 


ABEAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Address   after  the  assassination  of  President   Lincoln,   Tremont 
Temple,  Boston,  April  23,  1805. 

HTHESE  are  sober  days.  The  judgments  of  God  have 
-1  found  us  out.  Years  gone  by  chastised  us  with 
whips  ;  these  chastise  us  with  scorpions.  Thirty  years 
ago  how  strong  our  mountain  stood,  laughing  prosperity 
on  all  its  sides  !  None  heeded  the  fire  and  gloom  which 
slumbered  below.  It  was  nothing  that  a  giant  sin  gagged 
our  pulpits ;  that  its  mobs  ruled  our  streets,  burned  men 
at  the  stake  for  their  opinions,  and  hunted  them  like 
wild  beasts  for  their  humanity.  It  was  nothing  that,  in 
the  lonely  quiet  of  the  plantation,  there  fell  on  the  un- 
pitied  person  of  the  slave  every  torture  which  hellish 
ingenuity  could  devise.  It  was  nothing  that,  as  husband 
and  father,  mother  and  child,  the  negro  drained  to  its 
dregs  all  the  bitterness  that  could  be  pressed  into  his 
cup  ;  that,  torn  with  whip  and  dogs,  starved,  hunted,  tor- 
tured, racked,  he  cried,  "  How  long,  0  Lord,  how  long !  " 
In  vain  did  a  thousand  witnesses  crowd  our  highways, 
telling  to  the  world  the  horrors  of  this  prison-house, 
none  stopped  to  consider,  none  believed.  Trade  turned 
away  its  deaf  ear ;  the  Church  gazed  on  them  with  stony 
brow  ;  letters  passed  by  with  mocking  tongue.  But  what 
the  world  would  not  look  at  God  has  set  to-day  in  a  light 
so  ghastly  bright  that  it  almost  dazzles  us  blind.  What 
the  world  refused  to  believe,  God  has  written  all  over  the 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  447 

face  of  the  continent  with  the  sword's  point  in  the  blood 
of  our  best  and  most  beloved.  We  believe  the  agony  of  the 
slave's  hovel,  the  mother,  and  the  husband,  when  it  takes 
its  seat  at  our  board.  We  realize  the  barbarism  that 
crushed  him  in  the  sickening  and  brutal  use  of  the  relics 
of  Bull  Run,  in  the  torture  and  starvation  of  Libby 
Prison,  where  idiocy  was  mercy,  and  death  was  God's 
best  blessing ;  and  now,  still  more  bitterly,  we  realize  it 
in  the  coward  spite  which  strikes  an  unarmed  man,  un- 
warned, behind  his  back,  in  the  assassin  fingers  which 
dabble  with  bloody  knife  at  the  throats  of  old  men  on 
sick  pillows.  0  God,  let  this  lesson  be  enough !  Spare 
us  any  more  such  costly  teaching ! 

This  deed  is  but  the  result  and  fair  representative  of 
the  system  in  whose  defence  it  was  done.  No  matter 
whether  it  was  previously  approved  at  Richmond,  or 
whether  the  assassin,  if  he  reaches  the  Confederates,  be 
received  with  all  honor,  as  the  wretch  Brooks  was,  and 
as  this  bloodier  wretch  will  surely  be  wherever  rebels  are 
not  dumb  with  fear  of  our  cannon.  No  matter  for  all 
this.  God  shows  this  terrible  act  to  teach  the  nation  in 
unmistakable  terms  the  terrible  foe  with  which  it  has  to 
deal.  But  for  this  fiendish  spirit,  North  and  South,  which 
holds  up  the  rebellion,  the  assassin  had  never  either 
wished  or  dared  such  a  deed.  This  lurid  flash  only  shows 
us  how  black  and  wide  the  cloud  from  which  it  sprung. 

And  what  of  him  in  whose  precious  blood  this  momen- 
tous lesson  is  writ  ?  He  sleeps  in  the  blessings  of  the 
poor,  whose  fetters  God  commissioned  him  to  break. 
Give  prayers  and  tears  to  the  desolate  widow  and  the 
fatherless ;  but  count  him  blessed  far  above  the  crowd  of 
his  fellow-men.  [Fervent  cries  of  u  Amen  !  "]  He  was 
permitted  himself  to  deal  the  last  staggering  blow  which 
sent  rebellion  reeling  to  its  grave  ;  and  then,  holding  his 
darling  boy  by  the  hand,  to  walk  the  streets  of  its  sur- 


4-48  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

rendered  capital,  while  his  ears  drank  in  praise  and 
thanksgiving  whicli  bore  his  name  to  the  throne  of  God 
in  every  form  piety  and  gratitude  could  invent ;  and  final- 
ly, to  seal  the  sure  triumph  of  the  cause  he  loved  with 
his  own  blood.  He  caught  the  first  notes  of  the  coming 
jubilee,  and  heard  his  own  name  in  every  one.  Who 
among  living  men  may  not  envy  him  ?  Suppose  that 
when  a  boy,  as  he  floated  on  the  slow  current  of  the 
Mississippi,  idly  gazing  at  the  slave  upon  its  banks,  some 
angel  had  lifted  the  curtain  and  shown  him  that  in  the 
prime  of  his  manhood  he  should  see  this  proud  empire 
rocked  to  its  foundations  in  the  effort  to  break  those 
chains ;  should  himself  marshal  the  hosts  of  the  Al- 
mighty in  the  grandest  and  holiest  war  that  Christen- 
dom ever  knew,  and  deal  with  half-reluctant  hand  that 
thunderbolt  of  justice  which  would  smite  the  foul  system 
to  the  dust,  then  die,  leaving  a  name  immortal  in  the 
sturdy  pride  of  our  race  and  the  undying  gratitude  of 
another,  —  would  any  credulity,  however  sanguine,  any 
enthusiasm  however  fervid,  have  enabled  him  to  believe 
it  ?  Fortunate  man !  He  has  lived  to  do  it !  [Ap- 
plause.] God  has  graciously  withheld  him  from  any 
fatal  misstep  in  the  great  advance,  and  withdrawn  him  at 
the  moment  when  his  star  touched  its  zenith,  and  the 
nation  needed  a  sterner  hand  for  the  work  God  gives  it 
to  do. 

No  matter  now  that,  unable  to  lead  and  form  the  na- 
tion, he  was  contented  to  be  only  its  representative  and 
mouthpiece  ;  no  matter  that,  with  prejudices  hanging 
about  him,  he  groped  his  way  very  slowly  and  sometimes 
reluctantly  forward :  let  us  remember  how  patient  he 
was  of  contradiction,  how  little  obstinate  in  opinion, 
how  willing,  like  Lord  Bacon,  "  to  light  his  torch  at 
every  man's  candle."  With  the  least  possible  personal 
hatred ;  with  too  little  sectional  bitterness,  often  forget- 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  449 

ting  justice  in  mercy ;  tender-hearted  to  any  misery 
his  own  eyes  saw ;  and  in  any  deed  which  needed 
his  actual  sanction,  if  his  sympathy  had  limits,  — 
recollect  he  was  human,  and  that  he  welcomed  light 
more  than  most  men,  was  more  honest  than  his  fel- 
lows, and  with  a  truth  to  his  own  convictions  such 
as  few  politicians  achieve.  With  all  his  shortcomings, 
we  point  proudly  to  him  as  the  natural  growth  of  demo- 
cratic institutions.  [Applause.]  Coming  time  will  put 
him  in  that  galaxy  of  Americans  which  makes  our  his- 
tory the  day-star  of  the  nations,  —  Washington,  Hamilton, 
Franklin,  Jefferson,  and  Jay.  History  will  add  his  name 
to  the  bright  list,  with  a  more  loving  claim  on  our  grati- 
tude than  either  of  them.  No  one  of  those  was  called  to 
die  for  his  cause.  For  him,  when  the  nation  needed  to 
be  raised  to  its  last  dread  duty,  we  were  prepared  for  it 
by  the  baptism  of  his  blood. 

What  shall  we  say  as  to  the  punishment  of  rebels  ? 
The  air  is  thick  with  threats  of  vengeance.  I  admire 
the  motive  which  prompts  these  ;  but  let  us  remember 
no  cause,  however  infamous,  was  ever  crushed  by  punish- 
ing its  advocates  and  abettors,  —  all  history  proves  this. 
There  is  no  class  of  men  base  and  coward  enough,  no 
matter  what  their  views  and  purpose,  to  make  the  policy 
of  vengeance  successful.  In  bad  causes,  as  well  as  good, 
it  is  still  true  that  "  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed 
of  the  Church."  We  cannot  prevail  against  this  prin- 
ciple of  human  nature.  And  again,  with  regard  to  the 
dozen  chief  rebels,  it  will  never  be  a  practical  question 
whether  we  shall  hang  them.  Those  not  now  in  Europe 
will  soon  be  there;  indeed,  after  paroling  the  bloodiest 
and  guiltiest  of  all,  Robert  E.  Lee,  there  would  be  little 
fitness  in  hanging  any  lesser  wretch. 

The  only  punishment  which  ever  crushes  a  cause  is 
that  which  its  leader  necessarily  suffers  in  consequence 

29 


450  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

of  the  new  order  of  things  made  necessary  to  prevent  the 
recurrence  of  their  sin.  It  was  not  the  blood  of  two  peers 
arid  thirty  commoners  which  England  shed  after  the  re- 
bellion of  1715,  or  that  of  five  peers  and  twenty  com- 
moners after  the  rising  of  1745,  which  crushed  the  House 
of  Stuart.  Though  the  fight  had  lasted  only  a  few  months, 
those  blocks  and  gibbets  gave  Charles  his  only  chance 
to  recover.  But  the  confiscated  lands  of  his  adherents 
and  the  new  political  arrangement  of  the  Highlands,  — 
just,  and  recognized  as  such,  because  necessary,  —  these 
quenched  his  star  forever. 

Our  Rebellion  has  lasted  four  years.  Government  has 
exchanged  prisoners,  and  acknowledged  its  belligerent 
rights.  After  that  gibbets  are  out  of  the  question.  A 
thousand  men  rule  the  Rebellion,  are  the  Rebellion.  A 
thousand  men  !  We  cannot  hang  them  all ;  we  cannot 
hang  men  in  regiments.  What,  cover  the  continent 
with  gibbets  !  We  cannot  sicken  the  nineteenth  century 
with  such  a  sight.  It  would  sink  our  civilization  to  the 
level  of  Southern  barbarism.  It  would  forfeit  our  very 
right  to  supersede  the  Southern  system,  which  right  is 
based  on  ours  being  better  than  theirs.  To  make  its 
corner-stone  the  gibbet  would  degrade  us  to  the  level  of 
Davis  and  Lee.  The  structure  of  government  which, 
bore  the  earthquake  shock  of  1861  with  hardly  a  jar,  and 
which  now  bears  the  assassination  of  its  chief  magis- 
trate in  this  crisis  of  civil  war  with  even  less  disturbance, 
needs  for  its  safety  no  such  policy  of  vengeance  ;  its 
serene  strength  needs  to  use  only  so  much  severity  as 
will  fully  guarantee  security  for  the  future. 

Banish  every  one  of  these  thousand  rebel  leaders, — 
every  one  ,of  them,  —  on  pain  of  death  if  they  ever  re- 
turn!  [Loud  applause.]  Confiscate  every  dollar  and 
acre  they  own.  [Applause.  ]  These  steps  the  world  and 
their  followers  will  see  are  necessary  to  kill  the  seeds  of 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  451 

caste,  dangerous  State  rights,  and  secession.  [Applause.] 
Banish  Lee  with  the  rest.  [Applause.]  No  govern- 
ment should  ask  of  the  South,  which  he  has  wasted,  and 
the  North,  which  he  has  murdered,  such  superabundant 
Christian  patience  as  to  tolerate  in  our  streets  the  pres- 
ence of  a  wretch  whose  hand  upheld  Libby  Prison  and 
Andersonville,  and  whose  soul  is  black  with  sixty-four 
thousand  deaths  of  prisoners  by  starvation  and  torture. 

What  of  our  new  President  ?  His  whole  life  is  a 
pledge  that  he  knows  and  hates  thoroughly  that  caste 
which  is  the  Gibraltar  of  secession.  Caste,  mailed  in 
State  rights,  seized  slavery  as  its  weapon  to  smite  down 
the  Union.  Said  Jackson,  in  1833,  "  Slavery  will  be  the 
next  pretext  for  rebellion."  Pretext !  That  pretext  and 
weapon  we  wrench  from  the  rebel  hands  the  moment  we 
pass  the  Antislavery  amendment  to  the  Constitution. 
Now  kill  caste,  the  foe  who  wields  it.  Andy  Johnson 
is  our  natural  leader  for  this.  His  life  has  been  pledged 
to  it.  He  put  on  his  spurs  with  this  vow  of  knighthood. 
He  sees  that  confiscation,  land  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
masses,  is  the  means  to  kill  this  foe. 

Land  and  the  ballot  are  the  true  foundations  of  all 
governments.  Intrust  them,  wherever  loyalty  exists,  to 
all  those,  black*  and  white,  who  have  upheld  the  flag. 
[Applause.]  Reconstruct  no  State  without  giving  to 
every  loyal  man  in  it  the  ballot.  I  scout  all  limitations 
of  knowledge,  property,  or  race.  [Applause.]  Universal 
suffrage  for  me  ;  that  was  the  Revolutionary  model. 
Every  freeman  voted,  black  or  white,  whether  he  could 
read  or  not.  My  rule  is,  any  citizen  liable  to  be  hanged 
for  crime  is  entitled  to  vote  for  rulers.  The  ballot 
insures  the  school. 

Mr.  Johnson  has  not  yet  uttered  a  word  which  shows 
that  he  sees  the  need  of  negro  suffrage  to  guarantee  the 
Union.  The  best  thing  he  has  said  on  this  point,  show- 


452  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

ing  a  mind  open  to  light,  is  thus  reported  by  one  of  the 
most  intelligent  men  in  the  country,  the  Baltimore  cor- 
respondent of  the  Boston  Commonwealth  :  — 

"  The  Vice-President  was  holding  forth  very  eloquently  in 
front  of  Admiral  Lee's  dwelling,  just  in  front  of  the  Wai- 
Office  in  Washington.  He  said  he  was  willing  to  send  every 
negro  in  the  country  to  Africa  to  save  the  Union ;  na}*,  he 
was  willing  to  cut  Africa  loose  from  Asia,  and  sink  the  whole 
black  race  ten  thousand  fathoms  deep  to  effect  this  object. 
A  loud  voice  sang  out  in  the  crowd,  '  Let  the  negro  stay 
where  he  is,  Governor,  and  give  him  the  ballot,  and  the 
Union  will  be  safe  forever ! '  '  And  I  am  ready  to  do  that 
too ! '  [loud  applause]  shouted  the  governor,  with  intense  en- 
ergy, whereat  he  got  three  times  three  for  the  noble  senti- 
ment. I  witnessed  this  scene,  and  was  pleased  to  hear  our 
Vice-President  take  this  high  ground ;  for  up  to  this  point 
must  the  nation  quickly  advance,  or  there  will  be  no  peace, 
no  rest,  no  prosperity,  no  blessing,  for  our  suffering  and  dis- 
tracted countr}*." 

The  need  of  giving  the  negro  a  ballot  is  what  we  must 
press  on  the  President's  attention.  Beware  the  mistake 
which  fastened  McClellan  on  us,  running  too  fast  to  in- 
dorse a  man  while  untried,  determined  to  manufacture  a 
hero  and  leader  at  any  rate.  The  President  tells  us  that 
he  waits  to  announce  his  policy  till  events  call  for  it,  — 
a  wise,  timely,  and  statesman-like  course.  Let  us  imi- 
tate it.  Assure  him  in  return  that  the  government  shall 
have  our  support  like  good  citizens.  But  remind  him 
that  we  will  tell  him  what  we  think  of  his  policy  when 
we  learn  what  it  is.  He  says  :  "  Wait.  I  shall  punish  ; 
I  shall  confiscate.  What  more  I  shall  do  you  will  know 
when  I  do  it." 

Let  us  reply :  "  Good,  so  far  good  !  Banish  the 
rebels  ;  see  to  it  that,  beyond  all  mistake  you  strip  them 
of  all  possibility  of  doing  harm.  But  see  to  it  also  that 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  453 

before  you  admit  a  single  State  to  the  Union,  you  oblige 
it  to  give  every  loyal  man  in  it  the  ballot, — the  ballot, 
which  secures  education  ;  the  ballot,  which  begets  char- 
acter where  it  lodges  responsibility  ;  the  ballot,  having 
which  no  class  need  fear  injustice  or  contempt ;  the  bal- 
lot, which  puts  the  helm  of  the  Union  into  the  hands  of 
those  who  love  and  have  upheld  it.  Land,  where  every 
man's  title-deed,  based  on  confiscation,  is  the  bond  which 
ties  his  interest  to  the  Union ;  ballot,  the  weapon  which 
enables  him  to  defend  his  property  and  the  Union, 
—  these  are  the  motives  for  the  whii^e  man.  The  negro 
needs  no  motive  but  his  instinct  and  heart.  Give  him 
the  bullet  and  ballot ;  he  needs  them,  and  while  he  holds 
them  the  Union  is  safe.  To  reconstruct  now  without 
giving  the  negro  the  ballot  would  be  a  greater  blunder, 
and  considering  our  better  light,  a  greater  sin,  than  our 
fathers  committed  in  1789 ;  and  we  should  have  no  right 
to  expect  from  it  any  less  disastrous  results." 

This  is  the  lesson  God  teaches  us  in  the  blood  of  Lincoln. 
Like  Egypt,  we  are  made  to  read  our  lesson  in  the  blood  of 
our  first-born  and  the  seats  of  our  princes  left  empty. 
We  bury  all  false  magnanimity  in  this  fresh  grave,  writ- 
ing over  it  the  maxim  of  the  coming  four  years,  "  Treason 
is  the  greatest  of  crimes,  and  not  a  mere  difference  of 
opinion.'*  That  is  the  motto  of  our  leader  to-day  ;  that 
the  warning  this  atrocious  crime  sounds  throughout  the 
land.  Let  us  heed  it,  and  need  no  more  such  costly 
teaching.  [Loud  applause.] 


HELEN  ELIZA  GAREISON. 


Remarks  at  the  funeral  services  of  Mrs.  Garrison,  125  Highland 
Street,  Roxhury,  Thursday,  January  27,  1876. 

HOW  hard  it  is  to  let  our  friends  go  !  We  cling  to 
them  as  if  separation  were  separation  forever  ; 
and  yet,  as  life  nears  its  end,  and  we  tread  the  last  years 
together,  have  we  any  right  to  be  surprised  that  the 
circle  grows  narrow ;  that  so  many  fall,  one  after  an- 
other, at  our  side  ?  Death  seems  to  strike  very  fre- 
quently ;  but  it  is  only  the  natural,  inevitable  fate, 
however  sad  for  the  moment. 

Some  of  us  can  recollect,  only  twenty  years  ago,  the 
large  and  loving  group  that  lived  and  worked  together  ; 
the  joy  of  companionship,  sympathy  with  each  other,  — 
almost  our  only  joy,  for  the  outlook  was  very  dark, 
and  our  toil  seemed  almost  vain.  The  world's  dislike 
of  what  we  aimed  at,  the  social  frown,  obliged  us  to  be 
all  the  world  to  each  other ;  and  yet  it  was  a  full  life. 
The  life  was  worth  living ;  the  labor  was  its  own  re- 
ward ;  we  lacked  nothing. 

As  I  stand  by  this  dust,  my  thoughts  go  freshly  back 
to  those  pleasant  years  when  the  warp  and  woof  of  her 
life  were  woven  so  close  to  the  rest  of  us  ;  when  the 
sight  of  it  was  such  an  inspiration.  How  cheerfully  she 
took  up  daily  the  burden  of  sacrifice  and  effort !  With 
what  serene  courage  she  looked  into  the  face  of  peril  to 
her  own  life,  and  to  those  who  were  dearer  to  her  than 


HELEN    ELIZA    GARRISON.  455 

life !  A  young  bride  brought  under  such  dark  skies, 
and  so  ready  for  them!  Trained  among  Friends,  with 
the  blood  of  martyrdom  and  self-sacrifice  in  her  veins, 
she  came  so  naturally  to  the  altar!  And  when  the 
gallows  was  erected  in  front  of  the  young  bride's  win- 
dows, never  from  that  stout  soul  did  the  husband  get 
look  or  word  that  bade  him  do  anything  but  go  steadily 
forward,  and  take  110  counsel  of  man.  Sheltered  in  the 
jail,  a  great  city  hunting  for  his  life,  how  strong  he  must 
have  been  when  they  brought  him  his  young  wife's  brave 
words :  "  I  know  my  husband  will  never  betray  his 
principles  !  "  Helpmeet,  indeed,  for  the  pioneer  in  that 
terrible  fight ! 

The  most  unselfish  of  human  beings,  she  poured  all 
her  strength  into  the  lives  of  those  about  her,  without 
asking  acknowledgment  or  recognition,  unconscious  of 
the  sacrifice.  With  marvellous  ability,  what  would  have 
been  weary  burdens  to  others,  she  lifted  so  gayly  !  A 
young  mother,  with  the  cares  of  a  growing  family,  not 
rich  in  means,  only  her  own  hands  to  help,  yet  never  fail- 
ing in  cheerful  welcome  to  every  call ;  doing  for  others 
as  if  her  life  was  all  leisure  and  her  hands  full.  What 
rare  executive  ability,  doing  a  great  deal,  and  so  easily 
as  to  never  seem  burdened !  Who  ever  saw  her  reluct  at 
any  sacrifice  her  own  purpose  or  her  husband's  made 
necessary  ?  No  matter  how  long  and  weary  the  absence, 
no  matter  how  lonely  he  left  her,  she  cheered  and 
strengthened  him  to  the  sacrifice  if  his  great  cause  asked 
it.  The  fair  current  of  her  husband's  grand  purpose 
swept  on  unchecked  by  any  distracting  anxiety.  Her 
energy  and  unselfishness  left  him  all  his  strength  free 
for  the  world's  service. 

Many  of  you  have  seen  her  only  in  years  when  illness 
hindered  her  power.  You  can  hardly  appreciate  the 
large  help  she  gave  the  Antislavery  movement. 


456  HELEN    ELIZA    GARRISON. 

That  home  was  a  great  help.  Her  husband's  word 
and  pen  scattered  his  purpose  far  and  wide ;  but  the 
comrades  that  his  ideas  brought  to  his  side  her  welcome 
melted  into  friends.  No  matter  how  various  and  dis- 
cordant they  were  in  many  things;  no  matter  how 
much  there  was  to  bear  and  overlook, —  her  patience 
and  her  thanks  for  their  sympathy  in  the  great  idea 
were  always  sufficient  for  this  work  also.  She  made  a 
family  of  them,  and  her  roof  was  always  a  home  for  all. 
I  never  shall  forget  the  deep  feeling  —  his  voice  almost 
breaking  to  tears  —  with  which  Henry  C.  Wright  told 
me  of  the  debt  his  desolate  life  owed  to  this  home.  And 
who  shall  say  how  much  that  served  the  great  cause  ? 

Yet  drudgery  did  not  choke  thought ;  care  never  nar- 
rowed her  interest.  She  was  not  merely  the  mother, 
or  head  of  the  home  ;  her  own  life  and  her  husband's 
moved  hand  in  hand  in  such  loving  accord,  seemed  so 
exactly  one,  that  it  was  hard  to  divide  their  work.  At 
the  fireside ;  in  the  hours,  not  frequent,  of  relaxation  ; 
in  scenes  of  stormy  debate,  —  that  beautiful  presence,  of 
rare  sweetness  and  dignity,  what  an  inspiration  and 
power  it  was !  And  then  the  mother,  —  fond,  pains- 
taking, faithful  !  No  mother  who  bars  every  generous 
thought  out  from  her  life,  and  in  severe  seclusion  forgets 
everything  but  her  children,  —  no  such  mother  was  ever 
more  exact  in  every  duty,  ready  for  every  care,  faithful 
at  every  point,  more  lavish  in  fond  thoughtfulness,  than 
this  mother,  whose  cares  never  narrowed  the  broad  idea 
of  life  she  brought  from  her  girlhood's  home. 

Who  can  forget  her  modest  dignity  —  shrinking!)' 
modest,  yet  ever  equal  to  the  high  place  events  called 
her  to  ?  In  that  group  of  remarkable  men  and  women 
which  the  Antislavery  movement  drew  together,  she  had 
her  own  niche,  which  no  one  else  could  have  filled  so 
perfectly  or  unconsciously  as  she  did.  And  in  that 


HELEN    ELIZA   GARRISON.  457 

rounded  life  no  over  zeal  in  one  channel,  no  extra  ser- 
vice at  one  point,  needs  be  offered  as  excuse  for  short- 
coming elsewhere.  She  forgot,  omitted  nothing.  How 
much  we  all  owe  to  her!  She  is  not  dead, —  she  has 
gone  before  ;  but  she  has  not  gone  away.  Nearer  than 
ever,  this  very  hour  she  watches  and  ministers  to  those  in 
whose  lives  she  was  so  wrapped ;  to  whose  happiness 
she  was  so  devoted.  Who  thinks  that  loving  heart 
could  be  happy  if  it  were  not  allowed  to  minister  to  those 
she  loved  ?  How  easy  it  is  to  fancy  the  welcome  the 
old  faces  have  given  her !  The  honored  faces,  the  fa- 
miliar faces,  the  old  tones,  that  have  carried  her  back 
to  the  pleasant  years  of  health  and  strength  and  willing 
labor !  How  gladly  she  broke  the  bonds  that  hindered 
her  activity !  There  are  more  there  than  here.  Very 
slight  the  change  seems  to  her.  She  has  not  left  us, 
she  has  rejoined  them.  She  has  joined  the  old  band 
that  worked  life-long  for  the  true  and  good.  The  dear, 
familiar  names,  how  freshly  they  come  to  our  lips  !  We 
can  see  them  bend  over  and  lift  her  up  to  them,  to  a 
broader  life.  Faith  is  sight  to-day.  She  works  on  a 
higher  level :  ministers  to  old  ideas  ;  guards  those  she 
went  through  life  with  so  lovingly.  Even  in  that  higher 
work  they  watch  for  our  coming  also.  Let  the  years 
yet  spared  us  here  be  a  warning  to  make  ourselves  fit  for 
that  companionship ! 

The  separation  is  hard.  Nature  will  have  its  way. 
"  The  heart  knoweth  its  own  bitterness,"  and  for  a  while 
loves  to  dwell  on  it.  But  the  hour  is  just  here,  knock- 
ing at  the  door,  when  we  shall  thank  God  not  only  for 
the  long  years  of  companionship  and  health  and  exam- 
ple which  she  has  given  us,  but  for  this  great  relief: 
that,  in  fulness  of  time,  in  loving-kindness,  He  hath 
broken  the  bond  which  hindered  her.  No  heaven  that 
is  not  a  home  to  her.  She  worked  with  God  here,  and 


458  HELEN    ELIZA   GARRISON. 

He  has  taken  her  into  His  presence.  We  are  sad  because 
of  the  void  at  our  side.  It  is  hard  to  have  the  path  so 
empty  around  us.  We  miss  that  face  and  those  tones. 
But  that  is  the  body ;  limited,  narrow,  of  little  faith. 
The  soul  shines  through  in  a  moment,  sees  its  own 
destiny,  and  thanks  God  for  the  joyous  change.  We 
draw  sad  breaths  now.  We  miss  the  magnet  that  kept 
this  home  together.  We  miss  the  tie  that  bound  so 
lovingly  into  one  life  so  many  lives  ;  that  is  broken.  We 
peer  into  the  future,  and  fear  for  another  void  still,  and 
a  narrower  circle,  not  knowing  which  of  us  will  be  taken 
next.  With  an  effort  of  patience — with  half  submission 
—  we  bow  to  God's  dealings.  That  is  only  for  an  hour. 
In  a  little  while  we  shall  remember  the  grand  life ;  we 
shall  thank  God  for  the  contribution  it  has  made  to  the 
educating  forces  of  the  race,  for  the  good  it  has  been 
prompted  to  do,  for  the  part  it  had  strength  to  play  in 
the  grandest  drama  of  our  generation,  —  and  then  with 
our  eyes  lifted,  and  not  dimmed  by  tears,  we  shall  be 
able  to  say  out  of  a  full  heart :  "  Thou  doest  all  things 
well.  Blessed  be  Thy  name !  Blessed  be  Thy  name  for 
the  three  score  overflowing  years  ;  for  the  sunny  sky 
she  was  permitted  finally  to  see,  the  hated  name  made 
immortal,  the  perilled  life  guarded  by  a  nation's  grati- 
tude, for  the  capstone  put  on  with  shoutings  ;  that  she 
was  privileged  to  enter  the  promised  land  and  rest  in 
the  triumph,  with  the  family  circle  unbroken,  all  she 
loved  about  her !  And  blessed  be  Thy  name,  Father, 
that  in  due  time,  with  gracious  and  tender  loving-kind- 
ness, Thou  didst  break  the  bonds  that  hindered  her  true 
life,  and  take  her  to  higher  service  in  Thine  immediate 
presence  ! " 


WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEKISON. 


Remarks  at  the  funeral  services,  Boston,  May  28,  1879. 

IT  has  been  well  said  that  we  are  not  here  to  weep, 
and  neither  are  we  here  to  praise.  No  life  closes 
without  sadness.  Death,  after  all,  no  matter  what  hope 
or  what  memories  surround  it,  is  terrible  and  a  mystery. 
We  never  part  hands  that  have  been  clasped  life-long 
in  loving  tenderness  but  the  hour  is  sad ;  still,  we  do 
not  come  here  to  weep.  In  other  moments,  elsewhere, 
we  can  offer  tender  and  loving  sympathy  to  those  whose 
roof-tree  is  so  sadly  bereaved.  But  in  the  spirit  of  the 
great  life  which  we  commemorate,  this  hour  is  for  the 
utterance  of  a  lesson ;  this  hour  is  given  to  contemplate 
a  grand  example,  a  rich  inheritance,  a  noble  life  worthily 
ended.  You  come  together,  not  to  pay  tribute,  even 
loving  tribute,  to  the  friend  you  have  lost,  whose  features 
you  will  miss  from  daily  life,  but  to  remember  the  grand 
lesson  of  that  career;  to  speak  to  each  other,  and  to 
emphasize  what  that  life  teaches,  especially  in  the 
hearing  of  these  young  listeners,  who  did  not  see  that 
marvellous  career,  —  in  their  hearing  to  construe  the 
meaning  of  the  great  name  which  is  borne  world-wide, 
and  tell  them  why  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean,  the  news 
of  his  death  is  a  matter  of  interest  to  every  lover  of  his 
race.  As  my  friend  said,  we  have  no  right  to  be  silent. 
Those  of  us  who  stood  near  him,  who  witnessed  the 
secret  springs  of  his  action,  the  consistent  inward  and 


460  WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON. 

•x^ 
outward  life,  have  no  right  to  be  silent.     The  largest  \ 

contribution  that  will  ever  be  made  by  any  single  man's  / 
life  to  the  knowledge  of  the  working  of  our  institutions/ 
will  be  the  picture  of  his  career.    He  sounded  the  depths 
of  the  weakness,  he  proved   the  ultimate   strength  of 
republican  institutions ;  he  gave  us  to  know  the  perils   ) 
that  confront  us ;  he  taught  us  to  rally  the  strength  that  / 
lies  hid. 

To  my  mind  there  are  three  remarkable  elements  in 
his  career.  One  is  rare  even  among  great  men.  It  was 
his  own  moral  nature,  unaided,  uninfluenced  from  out- 
side, that  consecrated  him  to  a  great  idea.  Other  men 
ripen  gradually.  The  youngest  of  the  great  American 
names  that  will  be  compared  with  his  was  between  thirty 
and  forty  when  his  first  Antislavery  word  was  uttered. 
Luther  was  thirty-four  years  old  when  an  infamous 
enterprise  woke  him  to  indignation,  and  it  then  took 
two  years  more  to  reveal  to  him  the  mission  God  de- 
signed for  him.  This  man  was  in  jail  for  his  opinions 
when  he  was  just  twenty-four.  He  had  confronted  a 
nation  in  the  very  bloom  of  his  youth.  It  could  be  said 
of  him  more  than  of  any  other  American  in  our  day, 
and  more  than  of  any  great  leader  that  I  chance  now 
to  remember  in  any  epoch,  that  he  did  not  need  circum- 
stances, outside  influence,  some  great  pregnant  event, 
to  press  him  into  service,  to  provoke  him  to  thought,  to 
kindle  him  into  enthusiasm.  His  moral  nature  was  as 
marvellous  as  was  the  intellect  of  Pascal.  It  seemed  to 
be  born  fully  equipped,  "  finely  touched."  Think  of  the 
mere  dates ;  think  that  at  some  twenty-four  years  old, 
while  Christianity  and  statesmanship,  the  experience,  the 
genius  of  the  land,  were  wandering  in  the  desert,  aghast, 
amazed,  and  confounded  over  a  frightful  evil,  a  great 
sin,  this  boy  sounded,  found,  invented  the  talisman,— 
"  Immediate,  unconditional  emancipation  on  the  soil." 


WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON.  461 

You  may  say  he  borrowed  it  —  true  enough  —  from  the 
lips  of  a  woman  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic ;  but 
he  was  the  only  American  whose  moral  nature  seemed, 
just  on  the  edge  of  life,  so  perfectly  open  to  duty  and 
truth  that  it  answered  to  the  far-off  bugle-note,  and 
proclaimed  it  instantly  as  a  complete  solution  of  the 
problem. 

Young  men,  you  have  no  conception  of  the  miracle 
of  that  insight ;  for  it  is  not  given  to  you  to  remember 
with  any  vividness  the  blackness  of  the  darkness  of  igno- 
rance and  indifference  which  then  brooded  over  what 
was  called  the  moral  and  religious  element  of  the  Ameri- 
can people.  When  I  think  of  him,  as  Melanchthon  said 
of  Luther,  "  day  by  day  grows  the  wonder  fresh  "  at  the 
ripeness  of  the  moral  and  intellectual  life  that  God  gave 
him  at  the  very  opening. 

You  hear  that  boy's  lips  announcing  the  statesman-like 
solution  which  startled  politicians  and  angered  Church 
and    people.     A  year   afterwards,  with    equally  single- 
hearted   devotion,   in   words   that  have   been    so  often 
quoted,  with  those  dungeon  doors  behind  him,  he  enters 
on  his  career.     In  January,  1831,  then  twenty-five  years"^ 
old,  he  starts    the   publication  of  the  Liberator,  advo-/ 
eating  the  immediate  abolition  of  slavery ;  and  with  theS 
sublime  pledge,  "I  will  be  as  harsh  as  truth  and  as\ 
uncompromising  as  justice.     On  this  subject  I  do  not  \ 
wish  to  speak  or  write  with   moderation.     I  will  not  / 
equivocate  ;  I  will  not  excuse  ;  I  will  not  retreat  a  single 
inch  ;  AND  I  WILL  BE  HEARD." 

Then  began  an  agitation  which  for  the  marvel  of  its 
origin,  the  majesty  of  its  purpose,  the  earnestness,  un- 
selfishness, and  ability  of  its  appeals,  the  vigor  of  its 
assault,  the  deep  national  convulsion  it  caused,  the  vast 
and  beneficent  changes  it  wrought,  and  its  wide-spread, 
indirect  influence  on  all  kindred  moral  questions,  is  with- 


462  WILLIAM    LLOYD    GARRISON. 

out  a  parallel  in  history  since  Luther.  This  boy  created 
and  marshalled  it.  His  converts  held  it  up  and  carried 
it  on.  Before  this,  all  through  the  preceding  century, 
there  had  been  among  us  scattered  and  single  Abolition- 
ists, earnest  and  able  men,  —  sometimes,  like  Wythe  of 
Virginia,  in  high  places.  The  Quakers  and  Covenanters 
had  never  intermitted  their  testimony  against  slavery. 
But  Garrison  was  the  first  -man  to  begin  a  movement  de- 
signed to  annihilate  slavery.  He  announced  the  princi- 
ple, arranged  the  method,  gathered  the  forces,  enkindled 
the  zeal,  started  the  argument,  and  finally  marshalled  the 
nation  for  and  against  the  system  in  a  conflict  that  came 
near  rending  the  Union. 

I  marvel  again  at  the  instinctive  sagacity  which  dis- 
cerned the  hidden  forces  fit  for  such  a  movement,  called 
them  forth,  and  wielded  them  to  such  prompt  results. 
Archimedes  said,  "  Give  me  a  spot  and  I  will  move  the 
world."  O'Connell  leaned  back  on  three  millions  of 
Irishmen,  all  on  fire  with  sympathy.  Cobden's  hands 
were  held  up  by  the  whole  manufacturing  interest  of 
Great  Britain ;  his  treasury  was  the  wealth  of  the  mid- 
dle classes  of  the  country ;  and  behind  him  also,  in  fair 
proportion,  stood  the  religious  convictions  of  England. 
Marvellous  was  their  agitation ;  as  you  gaze  upon  it  in  its 
successive  stages  and  analyze  it,  you  are  astonished  at 
what  they  invented  for  tools.  But  this  boy  stood  alone, 
utterly  alone,  at  first.  There  was  no  sympathy  anywhere ; 
his  hands  were  empty ;  one  single  penniless  comrade 
was  his  only  helper.  Starving  on  bread  and  water,  he 
could  command  the  use  of  types,  that  was  all.  Trade 
endeavored  to  crush  him ;  the  intellectual  life  of  America 
disowned  him. 

My  friend  Weld  has  said  the  Church  was  a  thick  bank 
of  black  cloud  looming  over  him.  Yes.  But  no  sooner  did 
the  Church  discern  the  impetuous  boy's  purpose  than  out 


WILLIAM    LLOYD    GARRISON.  463 

of  that  dead,  sluggish  cloud  thundered  and  lightened  a 
malignity  which  could  not  find  words  to  express  its  hate. 
The  very  pulpit  where  I  stand  saw  this  apostle  of  liberty 
and  justice  sore  beset,  always  in  great  need,  and  often  in 
deadly  peril ;  yet  it  never  gave  him  one  word  of  approval 
or  sympathy.  During  all  his  weary  struggle,  Mr.  Garri- 
son felt  its  weight  in  the  scale  against  him.  In  those 
years  it  led  the  sect  which  arrogates  to  itself  the  name  of 
Liberal.  If  this  was  the  bearing  of  so-called  Liberals, 
what  bitterness  of  opposition,  judge  ye,  did  not  the  others 
show  ?  A  mere  boy  confronts  Church,  commerce,  and 
college  ;  a  boy  with  neither  training  nor  experience  !  Al- 
most at  once  the  assault  tells  ,  the  whole  country  is  hotly 
interested.  What  created  such  life  under  those  ribs  of 
death  ?  Whence  came  that  instinctive  knowledge  ? 
Where  did  he  get  that  sound  common-sense  ?  Whence 
did  he  summon  that  almost  unerring  sagacity  which, 
starting  agitation  on  an  untried  field,  never  committed 
an  error,  provoking  year  by  year  additional  enthusiasm, 
gathering,  as  he  advanced,  helper  after  helper  to  his  side  ! 
I  marvel  at  the  miraculous  boy.  He  had  no  means. 
Where  he  got,  whence  he  summoned,  how  he  created,  the 
elements  which  changed  1830  into  1835,  —  1830  apathy, 
indifference,  ignorance,  icebergs,  into  1835,  every  man 
intelligently  hating  him,  and  mobs  assaulting  him  in 
every  city,  —  is  a  marvel  which  none  but  older  men  than 
1  can  adequately  analyze  and  explain.  He  said  to  a 
friend  who  remonstrated  with  him  on  the  heat  and  se- 
verity of  his  language,  "  Brother,  I  have  need  to  be  all 
on  fire,  for  1  have  mountains  of  ice  about  me  to  melt." 
Well,  that  dungeon  of  1830,  that  universal  apathy,  that 
deadness  of  soul,  that  contempt  of  what  called  itself  in- 
tellect, in  ten  years  he  changed  into  the  whole  country 
aflame.  He  made  every  single  home,  press,  pulpit,  and 
senate -chamber  a  debating  society,  with  his  right  and 


464  WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON. 

wrong  for  the  subject.  And  as  was  said  of  Luther, 
"  God  honored  him  by  making  all  the  worst  men  his 
enemies." 

Fastened  on  that  daily  life  was  a  malignant  attention 
and  criticism  such  as  no  American  has  ever  endured.  I 
will  not  call  it  a  criticism  of  hate  ;  that  word  is  not 
strong  enough.  Malignity  searched  him  with  candles 
from  the  moment  he  uttered  that  God-given  solution  of 
the  problem  to  the  moment  when  he  took  the  hand  of  the 
nation  and  wrote  out  the  statute  which  made  it  law. 
Malignity  searched  those  forty  years  with  candles,  and 
yet  even  malignity  has  never  lisped  a  suspicion,  much 
less  a  charge,  —  never  lisped  a  suspicion  of  anything 
mean,  dishonorable,  dishonest.  No  man,  however  mad 
with  hate,  however  fierce  in  assault,  ever  dared  to  hint 
that  there  was  anything  low  in  motive,  false  in  assertion, 
selfish  in  purpose,  dishonest  in  method,  —  never  a  stain 
on  the  thought,  the  word,  or  the  deed. 

Now  contemplate  this  boy  entering  such  an  arena, 
confronting  a  nation  and  all  its  forces,  utterly  poor,  with 
no  sympathy  from  any  quarter,  conducting  an  angry, 
wide-spread,  and  profound  agitation  for  ten,  twenty,  forty 
years,  amid  the  hate  of  everything  strong  in  American 
life,  and  the  contempt  of  everything  influential,  and  no 
stain,  not  the  slightest  shadow  of  one,  rests  on  his 
escutcheon  !  Summon  me  the  public  men,  the  men  who 
have  put  their  iiands  to  the  helm  of  the  vessel  of  State 
since  1789,  of  whom  that  can  be  said,  although  love  and 
admiration,  which  almost  culminated  in  worship,  at- 
tended the  steps  of  some  of  them. 

Then  look  at  the  work  he  did.  My  friends  have 
spoken  of  his  influence.  What  American  ever  held  his 
hand  so  long  and  so  powerfully  on  the  helm  of  social, 
intellectual,  and  moral  America?  There  have  been 
giants  in  our  day.  Great  men,  God  has  granted  in  widely 


WILLIAM    LLOYD   GARRISON.  465 

different  spheres;  earnest  men,  men  whom  public  admi- 
ration lifted  early  into  power.  1  shall  venture  to  name 
some  of  them.  Perhaps  you  will  say  it  is  not  usual  on 
an  occasion  like  this  ;  but  long-waiting  truth  needs  to  be 
uttered  in  an  hour  when  this  great  example  is  still  abso- 
lutely indispensable  to  inspire  the  effort,  to  guide  the 
steps,  to  cheer  the  hope,  of  the  nation  not  yet  arrived  in 
the  promised  land.  I  want  to  show  you  the  vast  breadth 
and  depth  that  this  man's  name  signifies.  We  have  had 
Webster  in  the  Senate ;  we  have  had  Lyman  Beecher  in 
the  pulpit ;  we  have  had  Calhoun  at  the  head  of  a  section  ; 
we  have  had  a  philosopher  at  Concord  with  his  inspira- 
tion penetrating  the  young  mind  of  the  Northern  States. 
They  are  the  four  men  that  history,  perhaps,  will  mention 
somewhere  near  the  great  force  whose  closing  in  this 
scene  we  commemorate  to-day.  Remember  now  not 
merely  the  inadequate  means  at  this  man's  control,  not 
simply  the  bitter  hate  that  he  confronted,  not  the  vast 
work  that  he  must  be  allowed  to  have  done, —  surely 
vast,  when  measured  by  the  opposition  he  encountered 
and  the  strength  he  held  in  his  hands,  —  but  dismissing 
all  those  considerations,  measuring  nothing  but  the 
breadth  and  depth  of  his  hold,  his  grasp  on  American 
character,  social  change,  and  general  progress,  what 
man's  signet  has  been  set  so  deep,  so  planted  forever  on 
the  thoughts  of  his  epoch  ?  Trace  home  intelligently, 
trace  home  to  their  sources,  the  changes  social,  political, 
intellectual,  and  religious,  that  have  come  over  us  during 
the  last  fifty  years,  —  the  volcanic  convulsions,  the 
stormy  waves  which  have  tossed  and  rocked  our  gen- 
eration,— and  you  will  find  close  at  the  sources  of  the 
Mississippi  this  boy  with  his  proclamation  ! 

The  great  party  that  put  on  record  the  statute  of  free- 
dom was  made  up  of  men  whose  conscience  he  quickened 
and  whose  intellect  he  inspired,  and  they  long  stood  the 

30 


466  WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON. 

tools  of  a  public  opinion  that  he  created.  The  grandest 
name  beside  his  in  the  America  of  our  times  is  that  of 
John  Brown.  Brown  stood  on  the  platform  that  Garrison 
built ;  and  Mrs.  Stowe  herself  charmed  an  audience  that 
he  gathered  for  her,  with  words  which  he  inspired,  from 
a  heart  that  he  kindled.  Sitting  at  his  feet  were  leaders 
born  of  the  Liberator,  the  guides  of  public  sentiment. 
I  know  whereof  I  affirm.  It  was  often  a  pleasant  boast 
of  Charles  Sumner  that  he  read  the  Liberator,  two 
years  before  I  did ;  and  among  the  great  men  who  fol- 
lowed his  lead  and  held  up  his  hands  in  Massachusetts, 
where  is  the  intellect,  where  is  the  heart  that  does  not 
trace  to  this  printer-boy  the  first  pulse  that  bade  him 
serve  the  slave  ?  For  myself,  no  words  can  adequately 
tell  the  measureless  debt  I  owe  him,  the  moral  and  intel- 
lectual life  he  opened  to  me.  I  feel  like  the  old  Greek 
who,  taught  himself  by  Socrates,  called  his  own  scholars 
"  the  disciples  of  Socrates  " 

This  is  only  another  instance  added  to  the  roll  of  the 
Washingtons  and  the  Hampdens  whose  root  is  not 
ability,  but  character;  that  influence  which,  like  the 
great  Master's  of  Judea  (humanly  speaking),  spreading 
through  the  centuries,  testifies  that  the  world  suffers  its 
grandest  changes  not  by  genius,  but  by  the  more  potent 
control  of  character.  His  was  an  earnestness  that  would 
take  no  denial,  that  consumed  opposition  in  the  intensity 
of  its  convictions,  that  knew  nothing  but  right.  As 
friend  after  friend  gathered  slowly,  one  by  one,  to  his 
side,  in  that  very  meeting  of  a  dozen  heroic  men  to  form 
the  New  England  Antislavery  Society,  it  was  his  com- 
pelling hand,  his  resolute  unwillingness  to  temper  or 
qualify  the  utterance,  that  finally  dedicated  that  first 
organized  movement  to  the  doctrine  of  immediate  eman- 
cipation. He  seems  to  have  understood,  —  this  boy 
without  experience,  —  he  seems  to  have  understood  by 


WILLIAM    LLOYD    GARRISON.  467 

instinct  that  righteousness  is  the  only  thing  which  will 
finally  compel  submission  ;  that  one  with  God  is  always 
a  majority.  He  seems  to  have  known  it  at  the  very 
outset,  taught  of  God,  the  herald  and  champion,  God- 
endowed  and  God-sent  to  arouse  a  nation,  that  only  by 
the  most  absolute  assertion  of  the  uttermost  truth,  with- 
out qualification  or  compromise,  can  a  nation  be  waked 
to  conscience  or  strengthened  for  duty.  No  man  ever 
understood  so  thoroughly  —  not  O'Connell,  nor  Cobden 
—  the  nature  and  needs  of  that  agitation  which  alone,  in 
our  day,  reforms  States.  In  the  darkest  hour  he  never 
doubted  the  omnipotence  of  conscience  and  the  moral 
sentiment. 

And  then  look  at  the  nnquailing  courage  with  which 
he  faced  the  successive  obstacles  that  confronted  him ! 
Modest,  believing  at  the  outset  that  America  could  not 
be  as  corrupt  as  she  seemed,  he  waits  at  the  door  of  the 
churches,  importunes  leading  clergymen,  begs  for  a  voice 
from  the  sanctuary,  a  consecrated  protest  from  the  pul- 
pit. To  his  utter  amazement,  he  learns,  by  thus  prob- 
ing it,  that  the  Church  will  give  him  no  help,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  surges  into  the  movement  in  opposition. 
Serene,  though  astounded  by  the  unexpected  revelation, 
he  simply  turns  his  footsteps,  and  announces  that  "  a 
Christianity  which  keeps  peace  with  the  oppressor  is  no 
Christianity,"  and  goes  on  his  way  to  supplant  the  re- 
ligious element  which  the  Church  had  allied  with  sin  by 
a  deeper  religious  faith.  Yes,  he  sets  himself  to  work,  — 
this  stripling  with  his  sling  confronting  the  angry  giant 
in  complete  steel,  —  this  solitary  evangelist,  to  make 
Christians  of  twenty  millions  of  people! 

I  am  not  exaggerating.  You  know,  older  men  who 
can  go  back  to  that  period.  I  know  that  when  one,  kin- 
dred to  a  voice  that  you  have  heard  to-day,  whose  path- 
way Garrison's  bloody  feet  had  made  easier  for  the 


468  WILLIAM    LLOYD   GARRISON. 

treading,  —  when  he  uttered  in  a  pulpit  in  Boston  only 
a  few  strong  words,  injected  in  the  course  of  a  sermon, 
his  venerable  father,  between  seventy  and  eighty  years, 
was  met  the  next  morning  and  his  hand  shaken  by  a 
much-moved  friend.  "  Colonel,  you  have  my  sympathy. 
I  cannot  tell  you  how  much  I  pity  you."  "  What,"  said 
the  brusque  old  man,  u  what  is  your  pity?"  "  Well,  I 
hear  your  son  went  crazy  at *  Church  Green '  yesterday." 
Such  was  the  utter  indifference.  At  that  time,  bloody 
feet  had  smoothed  the  pathway  for  other  men  to  tread. 
Still,  then  and  for  years  afterwards,  insanity  was  the 
only  kind-hearted  excuse  that  partial  friends  could  find 
for  sympathy  with  such  a  madman  ! 

If  anything  strikes  one  more  prominently  than  an- 
other in  this  career,  —  to  your  astonishment,  young  men, 
you  may  say,  —  it  is  the  plain,  sober  common-sense,  the 
robust  English  element  which  underlay  Cromwell,  which 
explains  Hampden,  which  gives  the  color  that  distin- 
guishes 1640  in  England  from  1790  in  France.  Plain, 
robust,  well-balanced  common-sense.  Nothing  erratic  ; 
no  enthusiasm  which  had  lost  its  hold  on  firm  earth ;  no 
mistake  of  method  ;  no  unmeasured  confidence ;  no  mis- 
calculation of  the  enemy's  strength.  Whoever  mistook, 
Garrison  seldom  mistook.  Fewer  mistakes  in  that  long 
agitation  of  fifty  years  can  be  charged  to  his  account 
than  to  any  other  American.  Erratic  as  men  supposed 
him,  intemperate  in  utterance,  mad  in  judgment,  an 
enthusiast  gone  crazy,  the, moment  you  sat  down  at  his 
side,  patient  in  explanation,  clear  in  statement,  sound  in 
judgment,  studying  carefully  every  step,  calculating 
every  assault,  measuring  the  force  to  meet  it,  never  in 
haste,  always  patient,  waiting  until  the  time  ripened,  — 
fit  for  a  great  leader.  Cull,  if  you  please,  from  the  states- 
men who  obeyed  him,  whom  he  either  whipped  into  sub- 
mission or  summoned  into  existence,  —  cull  from  among 


WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON.  469 

(hem  the  man  whose  career,  fairly  examined,  exhibits 
fewer  miscalculations  and  fewer  mistakes  than  this 
career  which  is  just  ended. 

I  know  what  I  claim.  As  Mr.  Weld  has  said,  I  am 
speaking  to-day  to  men  who  judge  by  their  ears,  by 
rumors  ;  who  see,  not  with  their  eyes,  but  with  their 
prejudices.  History,  fifty  years  hence,  dispelling  yonr 
prejudices,  will  do  justice  to  the  grand  sweep  of  the  orbit 
which,  as  my  friend  said,  to-day  we  are  hardly  in  a  posi- 
tion, or  mood,  to  measure.  As  Coleridge  avers,  "  The 
truth-haters  of  to-morrow  will  give  the  right  name  to 
the  truth-haters  of  to-day,  for  even  such  men  the  stream 
of  time  bears  onward."  I  do  not  fear  that  if  my  words 
are  remembered  by  the  next  generation  they  will  be 
thought  unsupported  or  extravagant.  When  history 
seeks  the  sources  of  New  England  character,  when  men 
begin  to  open  up  and  examine  the  hidden  springs  and 
note  the  convulsions  and  the  throes  of  American  life 
within  the  last  half  century,  they  will  remember  Parker, 
that  Jupiter  of  the  pulpit ;  they  will  remember  the  long 
unheeded  but  measureless  influence  that  came  to  us  from 
the  seclusion  of  Concord  ;  they  will  do  justice  to  the 
masterly  statesmanship  which  guided,  during  a  part  of  his 
life,  the  efforts  of  Webster,  —  but  they  will  recognize  that 
there  was  only  one  -man  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line  who  met  squarely,  with  an  absolute  logic,  the  else 
impregnable  position  of  John  C.  Calhoun  ;  only  one 
brave,  far-sighted,  keen,  logical  intellect  which  dis- 
cerned that  there  were  only  two  moral  points  in  the 
universe,  right  and  wrong,  that  when  one  was  asserted, 
subterfuge  and  evasion  would  be  sure  to  end  in  defeat. 

Here  lie  the  brain  and  the  heart ;  here  lies  the 
statesman-like  intellect,  logical  as  Jonathan  Edwards, 
brave  as  Luther,  which  confronted  the  logic  of  South 
Carolina  with  an  assertion  direct  and  broad  enough  to 


470  WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON. 

make  an  issue  and  necessitate  a  conflict  of  two  civiliza- 
tions. Calhoun  said,  Slavery  is  right.  Webster  and 
Clay  shrunk  from  him  and  evaded  his  assertion.  Garri- 
son, alone  at  that  time,  met  him  face  to  face,  proclaim- 
ing slavery  a  sin  and  daring  all  the  inferences.  It  is 
true,  as  New  Orleans  complains  to-day  in  her  journals, 
that  this  man  brought  upon  America  everything  they 
call  the  disaster  of  the  last  twenty  years ;  and  it  is 
equally  true  that  if  you  seek  through  the  hidden  causes 
and  unheeded  events  for  the  hand  that  wrote  "  emanci- 
pation "  on  the  statute-book  and  on  the  flag,  it  lies  still 
there  to-day. 

I  have  no  time  to  number  the  many  kindred  reforms 
to  which  he  lent  as  profound  an  earnestness  and  almost 
as  large  aid. 

I  hardly  dare  enter  that  home.  There  is  one  other 
marked  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  unprecedented  element 
in  this  career.  His  was  the  happiest  life  I  ever  saw. 
No  need  for  pity.  Let  no  tear  fall  over  his  life.  No 
man  gathered  into  his  bosom  a  fuller  sheaf  of  blessing, 
delight,  and  joy.  In  his  seventy  years  there  were  not 
arrows  enough  in  the  whole  quiver  of  the  Church  or 
State  to  wound  him.  As  Guizot  once  said  from  the 
tribune,  "  Gentlemen,  you  cannot  get  high  enough  to 
reach  the  level  of  my  contempt."  So  Garrison,  from 
the  serene  level  of  his  daily  life,  from  the  faith  that 
never  faltered,  was  able  to  say  to  American  hate,  "  You 
cannot  reach  up  to  the  level  of  my  home  mood,  my 
daily  existence."  I  have  seen  him  intimately  for  thirty 
years,  while  raining  on  his  head  was  the  hate  of  the 
community,  when  by  every  possible  form  of  expression 
malignity  let  him  know  that  it  wished  him  all  sorts  of 
harm.  I  never  saw  him  unhappy  ;  I  never  saw  the  mo- 
ment that  serene,  abounding  faith  in  the  rectitude  of  his 
motive,  the  soundness  of  his  method,  and  the  certainty 


WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON.  471 

of  his  success  did  not  lift  him  above  all  possibility  of 
being  reached  by  any  clamor  about  him.  Every  one  of 
his  near  friends  will  agree  with  me  that  this  was  the 
happiest  life  God  has  granted  in  our  day  to  any  Ameri- 
can standing  in  the  foremost  rank  of  influence  and 
effort. 

Adjourned  from  the  stormiest  meeting,  where  hot  de- 
bate had  roused  all  his  powers  as  near  to  anger  as  his 
nature  ever  let  him  come,  the  music  of  a  dozen  voices  — 
even  of  those  who  had  just  opposed  him  —  or  a  piano, 
if  the  house  held  one,  changed  his  mood  in  an  instant, 
and  made  the  hour  laugh  with  more  than  content ;  unless 
indeed,  a  baby  and  playing  with  it  proved  metal  even 
more  attractive. 

To  champion  wearisome  causes,  bear  with  disordered 
intellects,  to  shelter  the  wrecks  of  intemperance  and 
fugitives  whose  pulse  trembled  at  every  touch  on  the 
door-latch,  —  this  was  his  home.  Keenly  alive  to  human 
suffering,  ever  prompt  to  help  relieve  it,  pouring  out  his 
means  for  that  more  lavishly  than  he  ought,  —  all  this 
was  no  burden,  never  clouded  or  depressed  the  inextin- 
guishable buoyancy  and  gladness  of  his  nature.  God 
ever  held  over  him  unclouded  the  sunlight  of  His 
countenance. 

And  he  never  grew  old.  The  tabernacle  of  flesh  grew 
feebler  and  the  step  was  less  elastic.  But  the  ability  to 
work,  the  serene  faith  and  unflagging  hope  suffered  no 
change.  To  the  day  of  his  death  he  was  as  ready  as  in 
his  boyhood  to  confront  and  defy  a  mad  majority.  The 
keen  insight  and  clear  judgment  never  failed  him.  His 
tenacity  of  purpose  never  weakened.  He  showed  noth- 
ing either  of  the  intellectual  sluggishness  or  the  timidity 
of  age.  The  bugle-call  which,  last  year,  woke  the  nation 
to  its  peril  and  duty  on  the  Southern  question,  showed 
all  the  old  fitness  to  lead  and  mould  a  people's  course. 


472  WILLIAM    LLOYD   GARRISON. 

Younger  men  might  be  confused  or  dazed  by  plausible 
pretensions,  and  half  the  North  was  befooled ;  but  the 
old  pioneer  detected  the  false  ring  as  quickly  as  in  his 
youth.  The  words  his  dying  hand  traced,  welcoming 
the  Southern  exodus  and  foretelling  its  result,  had  all 
the  defiant  courage  and  prophetic  solemnity  of  his 
youngest  and  boldest  days. 

Serene,  fearless,  marvellous  man  !  Mortal,  with  so 
few  shortcomings  ! 

Farewell,  for  a  very  little  while,  noblest  of  Christian 
men  !  Leader,  brave,  tireless,  unselfish  !  When  the  ear 
heard  thee,  then  it  blessed  thee  ;  the  eye  that  saw  thee 
gave  witness  to  thee.  More  truly  than  it  could  ever 
heretofore  be  said  since  the  great  patriarch  wrote  it, 
"  the  blessing  of  him  that  was  ready  to  perish  "  was 
thine  eternal  great  reward. 

Though  the  clouds  rest  for  a  moment  to-day  on  the 
great  work  that  you  set  your  heart  to  accomplish,  you 
knew,  —  God  in  his  love  let  you  see,  —  that  your  work 
was  done  ;  that  one  thing,  by  his  blessing  on  your  efforts, 
is  fixed  beyond  the  possibility  of  change.  While  that  ear 
could  listen,  God  gave  what  He  has  so  rarely  given 
to  man,  the  plaudits  and  prayers  of  four  millions  of 
victims,  thanking  you  for  emancipation,  and  through 
the  clouds  of  to-day  your  heart,  as  it  ceased  to  beat,  felt 
certain,  certain,  that  whether  one  flag  or  two  shall  rule 
this  continent  in  time  to  come,  one  thing  is  settled,— 
it  never  henceforth  can  be  trodden  by  a  slave ! 


HAKEIET   MAETINEAU. 


Remarks  at  the  Uuveiliug  of  Miss  Anne  Whitney's  statue  of 
Miss  Martiueau  in  the  Old  South  Meetiug-House,  December  26, 
1883.  This  was  the  last  public  utterance  of  Mr.  Phillips. 

WEBSTER  once  said,  that  "  In  war  there  are  no 
Sundays."  So  in  moral  questions  there  are 
no  nations.  Intellect  and  morals  transcend  all  limits. 
When  a  moral  issue  is  stirred,  then  there  is  no  Ameri- 
can, no  German.  We  are  all  men  and  women.  And 
that  is  the  reason  why  I  think  we  should  indorse  this 
memorial  of  the  city  to  Harriet  Marti neau,  because  her 
service  transcends  nationality.  There  would  be  nothing 
inappropriate  if  we  raised  a  memorial  to  Wickliffe,  or 
if  the  common-school  system  of  New  England  raised 
a  memorial  to  Calvin  ;  for  they  rendered  the  greatest  of 
services.  So  with  Harriet  Martineau,  we  might  fairly 
render  a  monument  to  the  grandest  woman  of  her  day, 
we,  the  heirs  of  the  same  language,  and  one  in  the  same 
civilization ;  for  steam  and  the  telegraph  have  made,  not 
many  nations,  but  one,  in  perfect  unity  in  the  world  of 
thought,  purpose,  and  intellect.  And  there  could  be  no 
fault  found  in  thus  recognizing  this  counsellor  of  princes, 
and  adviser  of  ministers,  this  woman  who  has  done  more 
for  beneficial  changes  in  the  English  world  than  any 
ten  men  in  Great  Britain.  In  an  epoch  fertile  of  great 
genius  among  women,  it  may  be  said  of  Miss  Martineau, 
that  she  was  the  peer  of  the  noblest,  and  that  her  influ- 
ence on  the  progress  of  the  age  was  more  than  equal 


474  HARRIET   MARTINEAU. 

to  that  of  all  the  others  combined.  She  has  the  great 
honor  of  having  always  seen  truth  one  generation  ahead; 
and  so  consistent  was  she,  so  keen  of  insight,  that  there 
is  no  need  of  going  back  to  explain  by  circumstances  in 
order  to  justify  the  actions  of  her  life.  This  can  hardly 
be  said  of  any  great  Englishman,  even  by  his  admirers. 

We  place  the  statue  here  in  Boston  because  she  has 
made  herself  an  American.  She  passed  through  this 
city  on  the  very  day  when  the  father  of  my  honored 
friend  was  mobbed  on  State  Street.  Her  friends  feared 
to  tell  her  the  truth  when  she  asked  what  the  immense 
crowd  were  doing,  and  dissimulated  by  saying  it  was 
post-time,  and  the  throng  were  hurrying  to  the  office  for 
the  mail.  Afterwards,  when  she  heard  of  the  mob  and 
its  action,  horror-struck,  she  turned  for  an  explanation 
to  her  host,  the  honored  president  of  a  neighboring  uni- 
versity ;  and  even  he  was  American  enough  to  assure 
her  that  no  harm  could  come  from  such  a  gathering ; 
said  it  was  not  a  mob,  it  was  a  collection,  or  gathering. 

Harriet  Martineau  had  been  welcomed  all  over  Amer- 
ica. She  had  been  received  by  Calhoun  in  South  Caro- 
lina, the  Chief-Justice  of  Virginia  had  welcomed  her  at 
his  mansion.  But  she  went  through  the  South  conceal- 
ing no  repugnance,  making  her  obeisance  to  no  idol. 
She  never  bowed  anywhere  to  the  aristocracy  of  acci- 
dent. This  brave  head  and  heart  held  its  own  through- 
out that  journey.  She  came  here  to  gain  a  personal 
knowledge  of  the  Abolitionists,  and  her  first  experience 
was  with  the  mob  on  State  Street.  Of  course  she  ex- 
pressed all  the  horror  which  a  gallant  soul  would  feel. 
You  may  speak  of  the  magnanimity  and  courage  of 
Harriet  Martineau  ;  but  the  first  element  is  her  rectitude 
of  purpose,  of  which  was  born  that  true  instinct  which 
saw  through  all  things.  We  have  had  Englishmen  come 
here  who  were  clear-sighted  enough  to  say  true  words 


HARRIET   MARTINEAU.  475 

after  they  returned  home ;  but  this  was  a  woman  who 
was  welcomed  by  crowds  in  the  South,  and  about  whom 
a  glamour  was  thrown  to  prevent  her  from  seeing  the 
truth.  It  is  easy  to  be  independent  when  all  behind  you 
agree  with  you,  but  the  difficulty  comes  when  nine  hun- 
dred and  ninety-nine  of  your  friends  think  you  wrong. 
Then  it  is  the  brave  soul  who  stands  up,  one  among  a 
thousand,  but  remembering  that  one  with  God  makes  a 
majority.  This  was  Harriet  Martineau.  She  was  sur- 
rounded by  doctors  of  divinity,  who  were  hedging  her 
about  with  their  theories  and  beliefs.  What  do  some 
of  these  later  travellers  who  have  been  here  know  of 
the  real  New  England,  when  they  have  been  seated  in 
ceiled  houses,  and  gorged  with  the  glittering  banquets  of 
social  societies  ?  Harriet  Martineau,  instead  of  linger- 
ing in  the  camps  of  the  Philistines,  could,  with  courage, 
declare,  u  I  will  go  among  the  Abolitionists,  and  see  for 
myself."  Shortly  after  the  time  of  the  State-street  mob 
she  came  to  Cambridge  ;  and  her  hosts  there  begged  her 
not  to  put  her  hand  into  their  quarrels.  The  Abolition- 
ists held  a  meeting  there.  The  only  hall  of  that  day 
open  to  them  was  owned  by  infidels.  Think  of  that,  ye 
friends  of  Christianity !  And  yet  the  infidelity  of  that 
day  is  the  Christianity  of  to-day.  To  this  meeting  in  this 
hall  Miss  Martineau  went,  to  express  her  entire  sym- 
pathy with  the  occasion.  As  a  result  of  her  words  and 
deeds,  such  was  the  lawlessness  of  that  time,  that  she 
had  to  turn  back  from  her  intended  journey  to  the  West, 
and  was  assured  that  she  would  be  lynched  if  she  dared 
set  foot  in  Ohio.  She  gave  up  her  journey,  but  not  her 
principles. 

Harriet  Martineau  saw,  not  merely  the  question  of 
free  speech,  but  the  grandeur  of  the  great  movement 
just  then  opened.  This  great  movement  is  second  only 
to  the  Reformation  in  the  history  of  the  English  and  the 


476  HARRIET   MART1NEAU. 

German  race.  In  time  to  come,  when  the  grandeur  of 
this  movement  is  set  forth  in  history,  you  will  see  its 
grand  and  beneficial  results.  Harriet  Martineau  saw  it 
fifty  years  ago,  and  after  that  she  was  one  of  us.  She 
was  always  the  friend  of  the  poor.  Prisoner,  slave,  worn 
out  by  toil  in  the  mill,  no  matter  who  the  sufferer,  there 
was  always  one  person  who  could  influence  Tory  and 
Liberal  to  listen.  Americans,  I  ask  you  to  welcome  to 
Boston  this  statue  of  Harriet  Martineau,  because  she 
was  the  greatest  American  Abolitionist.  We  want  our 
children  to  see  the  woman  who  came  to  observe,  and 
remained  to  work,  and,  having  once  put  her  hand  to 
the  plough,  persevered  until  she  was  allowed  to  live 
where  the  pa3an  of  the  emancipated  four  millions  went 
up  to  heaven,  showing  the  attainment  of  her  great 
desire. 


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